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Asst. Chief Cain: We took action.
A cop filed at least 17 false background-check reports on potential police officers, leading to reexaminations of their applications, an internal review found.
So reported Assistant Police Chief Racheal Cain.
Cain said that the officer responsible for faking the reports, Leah Russo, resigned from the force Monday once the department opened an internal investigation.
Russo did not respond to calls or a text message to her cell phone seeking comment.
Cain said officials discovered the problem during an executive session at a Board of Police Commissioners meeting in May when a rejected police applicant pleaded his case.
The applicant told commissioners that he had reviewed his file and discovered that it included a report of a conversation between one of his neighbors and a background investigator. That conversation couldn’t have taken place, the applicant said — because that neighbor is dead.
Cain said the remark surprised her: “We put a lot of trust in our officers to do the right thing. Obviously, I was extremely concerned about it.”
Police brass immediately removed Russo from doing background investigations and looked into the allegation, which turned out to be true, Cain said.
Then she had officers review Russo’s other files. They found 17 instances in all of false reports, involving supposed conversations with friends or neighbors that never took place, involving a total of “six or eight” applicants. All those false reports involved positive alleged recommendations.
Those cases (except for the one brought before the commissioners in May) involved applicants whose cases were still under review, Cain said. Staffers redid those investigations from scratch, and all have been completed. The chief has since recommended hiring some of those applicants and rejecting the applications of some others, according to Cain.
Russo filed her reports electronically and did not sign anything, Cain said. “I don’t believe it’s a crime.” But the department plans to forward the information to Connecticut’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council (POST), which may decide to bar her from filling other law enforcement jobs in Connecticut.
Russo’s partner did not take part in the reports in question, according to Cain.
“We acted immediately. One saving grace is that there are checks and balances put in place,” she said. “The applicant had the opportunity to go to the police commissioners, tell the police commissioners what he found, and based on that process, we were able to address it.”
Rank & File “Upset”
Russo, a member of the academy class of 2015, had been working as a city cop for less than three years when she landed a spot in the background investigations unit last fall.
That concerned some rank-and-file cops, who consider that a coveted position. In the past, the department has generally required cops to have at least four years experience and meet certain standards to start doing background checks. No written rule requires that four-year threshold; it was an unwritten practice.
So news of these 17 false reports touched a nerve in the department.
“People are upset,” said one officer familiar with the sentiment at 1 Union Ave. “A lot of people would like to be in that position, people who are more qualified. And I care who’s going to be my next back-up.”
Assistant Chief Cain said the move to younger background investigators reflects the department’s youth in the face of waves of retirements. Most cops have under five years on the job, she said. “Ideally,” she said, “we like to have more experienced veteran officers in any of these units.”
The Board of Police Commissioners is scheduled to meet Thursday night to vote on recommendations from Police Chief Anthony Campbell to hire 37 applicants for the academy class that starts June 25. (Thirty-one of the officers will train at the department’s training academy, six at Connecticut POST in Meriden.) The department aims to draw another 35 or so cadets from the approved civil service list for another class beginning in October.