Findings Letter

The Special Litigation Section opened an investigation of the East Haven Police Department (EHPD) on September 30, 2009 pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. As the investigation progressed, we expanded the investigation to include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We announced the results of our investigation on December 19, 2011. We found that EHPD engages in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing against Latinos in violation of the Constitution and federal law. In particular, we found that EHPD targeted Latinos for discriminatory traffic enforcement, treated Latinos more harshly than non-Latinos after traffic stops, and intentionally failed to design and implement internal systems that would identify and prevent the discriminatory conduct. On November 20, 2012, we entered an agreement resolving our investigation and asked the Court to make our settlement an order enforceable by the Court. The agreement, which was negotiated with the Town of East Haven and the EHPD, provides a comprehensive framework to remedy the issues we found. Since that time, a Joint Compliance Expert ("JCE") has monitored EHPD's compliance with the agreement, providing periodic reports to the Court. The documents here provide more information about the investigation, our findings, the agreement, and EHPD's compliance efforts.

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