When the Hartford’s City Council passed a municipal ordinance on Nov. 26, 2020 which provided its Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) with a slew of new powers, it was seen as an unprecedented leap in the city’s police accountability measures, making it a model for other municipalities to follow. 

“These reforms would strengthen that board significantly, giving it full-time, professional staff, more investigative power, and giving its findings much greater weight,” said Luke Bronin, then-Hartford mayor, about the ordinance when it was first proposed in July 2020. “These reforms would build a system of civilian oversight that is more effective and efficient, would make the Civilian Police Review Board more than just an ‘advisory’ board, and would help ensure meaningful civilian oversight whenever complaints are made.”

Despite all this optimism, however, the CPRB, by its own admission, has still not lived up to the lofty standards placed upon it. During yesterday’s CPRB meeting, CPRB’s Inspector General (IG) Joe Lopez, said the board has been hamstrung by police non-compliance and legal ambiguity.

“Many people have worked incredibly hard to bring us to where we are today, and that work certainly deserves recognition,” said Lopez. “But at the same time, the sobering truth remains that five years after that ordinance was strengthened, the board has yet to achieve the meaningful impact and genuine accountability that the city council intended.”

Peter Little, Co-Founder of the American Justice Project, said that while Lopez has done “courageous things” since becoming IG in November 2024, he was puzzled by the fact that none of the CPRB’s sustained findings of misconduct have made it to the police chief from the period of early 2021 through late 2024. Little told Inside Investigator that he was made aware of this issue by reviewing the CPRB’s meeting minutes, as Lopez himself made the board aware of it in March.

“He [Lopez] informed the Board that the process outlined in the Ordinance, which mandates that the CPRB promptly provides its findings to the Chief of Police and that the Chief of Police must duly consider these findings, is not being followed,” reads the March 25, 2025, meeting minutes. “He presented a flowchart and walked through the process, identifying areas of noncompliance.”

Little said that he roughly estimated 150 sustained findings during this period that failed to make it to the chief’s desk. At the end of last night’s meeting, Little asked Lopez as to whether or not the claim was true, and Lopez confirmed it.

“I’m not aware of any reports in the last five years that have made it to the chief’s desk,” said Lopez at the meeting. “The findings, when there were findings on the CPRB that differed [from the police’s], whenever there was a finding of ‘sustained,’ those are the reports I’m talking about, when something was sustained — I’m not aware of a city report that made it there to the chief’s desk.”

Lopez, who entered the role of IG in November 2024, did not provide information as to how this occurred, but assured Little that reports have been making it to the chief’s desk as of March 2025. Per Lopez and his predecessor, Liam Brennan, about 170 cases cleared over this period were backlogged cases going back decades. Regardless, Lopez himself admitted the board has had a lackluster impact since the ordinance’s passage, and chronicled the hurdles the board has faced thus far in reaching its goals.

Lopez said the CPRB has thus far been hamstrung by police non-compliance with subpoenas, confusion among Superior Court officials surrounding the subpoena process, a memorandum of understanding with the police that stipulates subpoenas as last resort measures, and an inability to move contested cases through arbitration. Lopez made a “call to action” to City Council members attending the meeting, requesting a revision to the 2020 ordinance that more clearly asserts the CRPB’s powers as a watchdog.

“This is a call to action,” said Lopez. “If we’re going to be true about this ordinance, and we want a real civilian police review board, now’s the time to act. I know we’re committed, I’m asking you for your help.”

Lopez recounted the history of the CPRB. Since 1992, the board has more or less served in an advisory role, Lopez said, as Hartford’s police chief was not originally obligated to follow the board’s recommendations, nor could officers be compelled by the board to testify or provide evidence. 

These statutory limitations, however, were lifted in 2020, when the state passed the Police Accountability Act in response to the murder of George Floyd. The bill granted municipalities the ability to give civilian review boards “significant powers,” said Lopez, such as the power to issue subpoenas and compel witness testimony. On Nov. 26, 2020, Hartford’s City Council passed an ordinance providing the CPRB with these powers, as well as the power to challenge the Hartford Police Department when they ruled in opposition to the CPRB’s findings.

“To be clear, the goal was to create a board that instilled confidence on both sides really,” said Lopez. “Giving the residents assurances that their voices were heard and that accountability carried real consequences, while also providing officers committed to the community, the confidence that oversight would be fair, balanced and just.” 

Hartford’s adoption of a civilian review board with a full-time inspector general and subpoena powers was “cutting edge, a true model for the rest of the state,” said Lopez. The model in reality, however, has yet to live up to its on-paper promises.

“It was groundbreaking, yet despite the ordinance and its statutory backing, I still encounter resistance in trying to get some materials and discovery,” said Lopez. “Some individuals continue to argue that the only materials that I, as the Inspector General for the Civilian Police Review Board have been entitled to, are materials that would be available to any citizen throughout the Freedom of Information request. This interpretation of the ordinance is clearly incorrect.”

Lopez noted that CT General Statutes 7-294aaa, codified the right of civilian review boards to subpoena records, and also gives review boards the ability to have the courts compel records or testimony from officers should they ignore such subpoenas. 

“So that is pretty strong legal authority for the right to subpoenas and the right for this CPRB to instruct its inspector general to issue subpoenas,” said Lopez. “The sobering truth remains, five years after the ordinance to strengthen it, the Civilian Police Review Board has still not fully exercised the authority granted to it, or the vision.” 

He noted that the two cases the CPRB has tried to bring through the state court’s arbitration docket have been blocked by the Hartford Police Union. Per the ordinance, the CPRB can request an independent arbitrator review and determine the department’s course of disciplinary action, should the police chief decide to ignore the CPRB’s findings and recommendations. 

“The board’s findings do not yet carry the weight they were intended to; true accountability will only be realized when we establish the power of binding arbitration,” said Lopez. “Until then, it can be argued that, although it’s come a long way, we’re still functioning as little more than an advisory board, rather than the independent oversight entitled entity authorized by the ordinance.”

Lopez said that since the CPRB’s subpoenas have met “a bunch of challenges and non-compliance,” he has “deliberately held off issuing” them. While relations between the board and Internal Affairs, the division in each police department that conducts in-house investigations of officer misconduct, has improved, Lopez said it is still far from where it needs to be.

“My office continues to struggle at times with procuring documents,” said Lopez. “I do want to acknowledge that Internal Affairs is turning over a lot more documents, I get more things, more timely than I did before. A lot of improvement. There’s still, however, cases that are redacted, heavily redacted.”

Brennan, who served as IG from June 2022 to April 2024, echoed Lopez’s grievances, and noted his biggest hurdle was trying to use the board’s subpoena power, a process he described as being a source of “break your brain” levels of frustration.

“There was no civilian police review board subpoena out there, like, it didn’t exist,” said Brennan. “No one had set up a template; the Judicial Branch didn’t set it up, that just literally did not exist. So that kind of left us unclear with what we should do.”

Brennan cited this issue as one of many he faced as the CPRB had to trailblaze, filling gaps between the law’s written intent and its actual implementation on the ground. Brennan said he had to interface between the courts, the Judicial Branch and the police to figure out how subpoenas would be submitted, how different legal protections interfaced with or possibly prevented the eligibility of certain information to be subpoenaed, and that the process still ultimately remains, “very opaque.”

“It’s great to, you know, sign the bills and pass the ordinances and see how wonderful they are in their ideals, which they are,” said Brennan. “But then seeing how they translate into actual on the ground difference — there can often be a gap there, and it takes a lot of extra effort and work to bridge that gap, and so we spent a lot of time trying to do that and I think it’s probably going to be an ongoing process for Joe.”

Lopez shared his belief that the city must ultimately revise its ordinance to more clearly affirm the CPRB’s powers in order for the board to reach the level of efficacy expected of it by the City Council and the public.

“Those that are telling me that I can’t have these materials because I’m not entitled to them? 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,” said Lopez. “I think we need to make it crystal clear that the IG, who is a city watchdog doing investigations and reporting to the chair and the board, does have the authority to look at these documents that are sitting in the IA’s folder.”

Councilman Joshua Mictom said that he supports re-evaluating the ordinance, and that while it’s “unsurprising” that there’s been pushback from the police union and department, and that while it’s “somewhat surprising” to see the pushback extend to the city’s Corporation Counsel (the city’s legal department), he hopes the council and Mayor’s Office view the importance of the review board similarly.

“I hope very much that my colleagues will not just endorse some amendment, and that the mayor will not just voice his support, but that he will hold his police chief to account and his Corporation Counsel to account, because we keep failing to move forwards it’s on all of us,” said Michtom. 

As for Little, he told Inside Investigator that he thought the CPRB’s past shortcomings were “scandalous,” and while he applauded Lopez for identifying and rectifying the issue, the question remained as to what the CPRB would do about it going forward.

“Will they do anything about it retroactively?” said Little. “That’s my big question. And – who knew?”

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.