Chris Powell: State police scandal seems to broaden; ‘banned books’ scam

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Announcing the retirement of his state police commissioner, James C. Rovella, and deputy commissioner, Col. Stavros Mellekas, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont prompted speculation that the festering scandal over fake traffic tickets may turn out to be far more extensive than has been indicated.

The governor explained the departures as a matter of his wanting a "fresh start" with the state police for his second term. But his second term began nine months ago and the audit reporting many racial discrepancies with traffic tickets issued by state troopers wasn't released until five months later.

Four investigations are underway -- by the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Transportation Department, one commissioned by the governor and assigned to a former U.S. attorney, and one by the state police department itself. The tickets under review are suspected of misreporting the race of the motorists, thereby concealing racial discrimination by troopers. If innocent mistakes in data entry caused the discrepancies, one of those investigations might have concluded as much by now. But even the state police themselves have not provided any firm explanation.

If the misreporting was not innocent but dishonest or malicious, firings will be necessary to maintain public confidence, even as the state troopers union already has voted no confidence in the department's management while failing to provide any explanation of its own about what happened.

The audit found misreporting was probable with the tickets written by as many as 130 current or retired state troopers, so dozens of troopers might have to be dismissed or otherwise disciplined. The problem wouldn't end there, since the implication of any trooper in official dishonesty may prompt challenges to his testimony in criminal cases already decided and risk undoing them.

Additionally, as crime and traffic violations are becoming more brazen amid general social disintegration and increasing mental illness, the state police are understaffed, and dismissals or suspensions will worsen that understaffing.

Connecticut needs its police more than ever, but they are no good if they lack integrity. Integrity is their foremost qualification. If state troopers have been lacking integrity lately -- and lax discipline in some recent cases suggests as much -- solving the problem will have to go far beyond replacing the commissioner and his deputy.

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Connecticut's librarians and some elected officials and advocates of using schools to indoctrinate students without their parents knowing about it recently celebrated a misnomer self-righteously: what they called Banned Books Week.

No books are banned in the United States. The recent controversies are about challenges to books in school and public libraries and school curriculums -- whether certain books, especially those of a sexual nature, are appropriate for certain ages or appropriate for stocking in a school or public library at all.

Appropriateness is always a matter of judgment and thus always a fair issue. While some challenges may be crazy or bigoted, the real issue is always whether in a democracy the public has the right to express its judgment on the management of public institutions and to seek to have that judgment implemented through elected officials, or whether librarians and school administrators are always right and must not be questioned.

But addressing the real issue candidly would diminish the power of the people in charge by legitimizing questions about their judgment. So instead the people in charge frame the issue as that of "banning" books, since banning books is plainly fascism and commands little support.

Of course dismissing the public's concerns about the operation of public institutions is fascism too, but now that Connecticut is run by the political left, fascism is thought to be impossible here.]

The irony is that if keeping a book out of a library or curriculum is "banning" it, librarians and school administrators themselves are the biggest book banners. For libraries and curriculums are usually very small while the supply of books is virtually infinite, so librarians and school administrators are always having to choose against millions of books, including some pretty good ones.

What vindicates their choices? That's what Banned Books Week is for.  

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).