The state’s tough financial shape is apparently responsible for watering down a bill aimed at requiring outside prosecutors to investigate excessive use of force or homicides at the hands of local police.
The Senate shipped the bill off to the Appropriations Committee after Sen. Eric Coleman, D-Bloomfield, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, offered an amendment that would allow the chief state’s attorney to appoint either another state’s attorney or outside counsel.
“This is an effort to address the problem of excessive use of force by police officers,” Coleman said during the debate. “It is believed that the chief state’s attorney can accomplish an investigation of excessive use of force within existing appropriations.”
The amended bill, which would head back to the Senate if approved by the budget-writing Appropriations panel, would be a legislative victory for Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane. Earlier in the session, proponents of the larger bill, pointing to incidents of police violence that triggered unrest in cities throughout the country, stressed the need for prosecutors from outside jurisdictions, such as a Danbury prosecutor investigating excess force in Bridgeport.