Last November, the Hartford Civilian Police Review Board’s Inspector General, Joe Lopez, issued a desperate “call to action” to City Council members, asking them to amend the city’s ordinances to clearly establish and assert the CPRB’s powers as a police watchdog. Last Monday, Hartford’s City Council unanimously amended the city’s ordinance to do just that.
“I just want to take a minute to thank our Inspector General Joe Lopez and his staff for bringing to our attention how the language and intention of the original ordinance had been frustrated — how badly it had been frustrated, how poorly the thing was working — and really taking the lead on nudging us to reform this,” said Councilman Joshua Michtom, who listened to Lopez’s frustrations at that November 2025 CPRB meeting.
The amendment, which was subsequently signed into law by Mayor Arunan Arulampalam on Oct. 2, strengthened the CPRB’s ability to receive timely access to police evidence when investigating complaints, confirmed the CPRB’s authority to issue subpoenas and pursue arbitration, and clarified that HPD’s Chief must consider the CPRB’s findings on a complaint before issuing a final determination. Additionally, the amendment asserts that the Inspector General (IG) reports “directly and solely” to the CPRB, to clarify the office’s political independence. While many of the powers established by last week’s ordinance had, in effect, already been established by state law and prior municipal ordinance, the CPRB and IG Lopez have asserted that legal ambiguity and blatant non-compliance necessitated that they be further clarified.
“Those that are telling me that I can’t have these materials because I’m not entitled to them?” said Lopez, at the November 2025 meeting. “City Council needs to make clear that their intent was that I am entitled to this, and without that amendment, I don’t think we move forward.”
Andrea Hartman, the CPRB’s Acting Chair, said Lopez first requested assistance from the City Council and Corporation Counsel, the City’s legal team, for ordinance amendments over a year ago. The amendments were ultimately introduced in June, and the City Council held two public hearings on them, on July 20 and September 21, in which members of the CPRB and a long list of Hartford residents and community activists testified in favor of their passage.
In 2020, the state passed its Police Accountability Act, which allowed municipalities to grant civilian review boards the power to issue subpoenas, compel witness testimony and pursue arbitration anytime a police chief’s determination of misconduct differs from that of the review board’s. In November 2020, Hartford’s City Council passed an ordinance providing the CPRB with these powers.
Despite these changes, the CPRB and IG have complained that their authority was still being undermined by the Hartford Police Union (HPU). HPD’s Internal Affairs Unit, which conducts internal investigations into citizen’s complaints, has denied the CPRB timely access to evidence or case files, or provided redacted versions of them to the CPRB, and has argued that the CPRB must FOIA for these documents. The new ordinance clarifies that IG does not have to go through the FOI process and must be provided with the relevant documents.
“The Hartford Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division shall promptly provide the Inspector General with access to and copies of all materials in its file, as well as any documents reviewed in connection with a citizen complaint, without redaction,” reads the amendment. “This requirement applies unless a record or document is specifically prohibited from disclosure by federal law or Connecticut state statute governing confidentiality of records, excluding Connecticut General Statutes Sections 1-210 et seq [Connecticut’s FOIA laws].”
The HPU has blocked two cases which the CPRB tried to bring through the state’s arbitration docket by claiming they violate the Union’s contract, bringing the issue before the State’s Labor Relations Board. The CPRB’s prior attempts to subpoena officers have also been resisted by the police department. At last week’s City Council meeting, Michtom said that the HPU has even gone as far as to hire outside counsel to dispute the CPRB’s subpoena requests, a development he called “unconscionable,” and “a waste of money.”
“The police department used city money to hire outside counsel to fight the subpoenas,” said Michtom. “So we have the city fighting itself as though we didn’t know what the intention of the original ordinance was, when most of us were here and worked on it.”
Lopez told Inside Investigator that the amendments “are not merely technical changes” but “a lifeline.” The HPD’s delays in providing him with documentation has contributed to a “significant backlog of cases,” that brought the CPRB “close to a standstill,” Lopez said.
“They address ambiguities and clarify the ordinance in ways that are necessary for CPRB and the IG’s office to function as intended,” said Lopez. “The people of Hartford have spoken over these last few months. These amendments seek to fulfill the spirit and intent of the 2020 CPRB Ordinance and remove the avenues that have allowed HPD to obstruct or delay CPRB’s legal mandate to the residents of Hartford.”
James Rutkauski, President of the HPU, told Inside Investigator that the union is “disappointed” that the amendments passed “without bargaining any of the mandatory subjects the Union identified in writing.” Rutkauski said that HPU “does not object to civilian oversight,” but objects to “being the only party in Hartford expected to learn the terms of its own employment from an agenda packet.”
“The City is currently defending a prohibited practice complaint before the State Board of Labor Relations arising from the 2020 version of this same ordinance,” said Rutkauski. “Rather than await that decision, the City has drafted a new version, revised it numerous times, and again skipped the step where it speaks with the people whose discipline, investigations and interviews the ordinance rewrites.”
Amidst the HPU’s complaints and the CPRB’s compliments, some of the community activists who spoke in support of the amendment during its public hearing also shared the belief that it doesn’t go far enough. At the September 21st public hearing, Peter Little, Co-Founder of the American Justice Project, said that “two important elements” of the originally proposed amendments had been “weakened” since the first public hearing was held in July. Those two elements were discipline and measures to ensure the CPRB’s financial independence. Little criticized the amendment for allowing the HPD chief discretion in deciding what the disciplinary penalty, if any, is given to an officer in cases where an arbitrator finds misconduct.
“Just think about what that means and the signal that sends to the community,” said Little. “The CPRB investigates; it finds misconduct; the chief disagrees. The case goes to the independent arbitrator, just as this ordinance provides. The arbitrator reviews the evidence and sides with the CPRB, and after all that, the chief can still say no discipline. In our view, that’s just not meaningful accountability.”
Ivelisse Correa-Brown, of BLM 860, and Pastor AJ Johnson, a Hartford faith leader and community activist, also criticized the HPD Chief’s continued disciplinary discretion. In instances where the Chief decides to give lesser punishment than recommended by the arbitrator or the HPD’s Code of Conduct, Johnson said that “the public deserves a clear written explanation.” Correa-Brown asked, “What did we fix?” if the amendment still allows the chief to “basically say, ‘Thanks for your opinion,’ and then decide less discipline.”
Lopez told Inside Investigator that the ordinance was “intentionally drafted” so as not to “intrude upon or conflict with the Chief of Police’s disciplinary authority,” which is enshrined in the HPU’s collective bargaining agreement with the city. Citing Connecticut’s Municipal Employee Relations Act, Lopez explained that state law maintains that anytime a municipal ordinance conflicts with a collective bargaining agreement on “a matter appropriate for collective bargaining,” the agreement prevails.
“Anything to do with discipline is a matter appropriate for collective bargaining and not municipal ordinance,” said Lopez. “Accordingly, the CPRB ordinance does not purport to establish, modify, or limit the Chief’s ultimate disciplinary authority when that authority. If it did, the ordinance’s arbitration provision would be unlawful.”
Little also criticized the removal of previously proposed language that “gave the CPRB and the Inspector General meaningful control over their budget and their personnel.”
“A civilian oversight agency that depends on the administration it oversees for its staffing, hiring decisions, and resources is not truly, fully independent,” said Little. “Under the latest ordinance revisions, you’re giving the CPRB subpoena power on Monday, but handicapping it through staffing and budget restrictions on Tuesday. So please, please restore meaningful budgetary and personnel independence.”
Despite their critiques of the budget language, Correa-Brown, Little and Johnson all offered their support for their amendment, and the CPRB’s and City Council’s efforts in working on it. Hartman told Inside Investigator that the “proposed language to create a separate budget for the IG’s office” was removed over concern as to whether it may violate the City’s Charter. Hartman acknowledged that budgetary independence “remains an open concern.”
“The IG and Board have historically faced challenges obtaining allotted funding for essential needs, including training and professional development,” said Hartman. “These amendments do not resolve that issue. We hope, however, that the Mayor’s office will be accommodating in the future and provide sufficient resources to ensure that IG staff and Board members have access to continuing education and opportunities for professional growth.”
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