By Alex Wood
The Register Citizen, Torrington, Conn.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A state Appellate Court decision requires the Torrington Police Department to reinstate Sgt. Gerald “Jay” Peters, who was fired over a 2020 incident in which he pepper-sprayed a handcuffed man.
The decision, by a unanimous three-judge panel, reverses a 2023 decision by Judge Ann E. Lynch in state Superior Court in Torrington “vacating” the 2-1 decision by the three-member labor arbitration panel that ordered Peters reinstated with full back pay and seniority.
Lawyer Michael J. Rose, representing Torrington, said the city plans to ask the state Supreme Court to review the decision. The state’s top court may decide to review the decision, but is not required to do so.
Peters had roughly 30 years experience as a police officer, including nearly 20 years with Torrington Police Department, when he was fired, according to the decision.
The law gives the courts only very limited authority to review decisions by labor arbitrators at the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration. The central issue before the courts in the Peters case was whether the arbitration panel applied the law correctly.
The law requires review of use of force by police officers to be undertaken “objectively,” meaning from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, not from the subjective point of view of the officer involved.
Lynch ruled that the two-member majority of the arbitration panel had strayed from that standard, by writing in their decision about what Peters thought and perceived during the incident.
But the Appellate Court wrote that the arbitrators’ decision went on to conclude that Peters “was complying” with his department’s general orders, which, in turn, recite the correct legal standard.
“Viewing the panel’s decision in its entirety, it is clear, from the panel’s determination that Peters had complied with the general orders, that it applied the correct objective standard in assessing Peters’ use of force,” Judge Robert W. Clark wrote for the Appellate Court.
The incident at issue in the case stemmed from the arrest of Christopher Spetland after incidents at two Torrington businesses on May 23, 2020.
“Spetland had an extensive criminal history that included arrests and convictions for assault and interfering with police officers,” the Appellate Court decision says, reciting facts found by the arbitration panel.
“In the course of his arrest, Spetland attempted to escape, kicked at the officers, and threatened the officers with physical harm,” the decision continues. “His speech was slurred, and he appeared to be intoxicated. A knife was removed from his person.”
Peters was acting as officer in charge of the police department’s booking room that day and saw Spetland in the sally port, where it took three officers to remove him from a police cruiser, the decision says.
Peters saw Spetland resisting the officers by trying to free his arm from one officer’s grip, trying to hit that officer with his elbow and kicking another officer in the shin, according to the decision.
“The officers brought Spetland to the ground and held him there until a wheelchair was brought to them,” the decision says.
It says Spetland made threats and continued to resist as the officers brought him to the booking area, and Peters determined that “he posed an imminent threat to both himself and the other officers.”
“Because there was a policy that an arrestee could not be placed in a cell with handcuffs, Spetland’s handcuffs would have to be removed before he could be put in a cell,” the decision continues. It says Peters determined that the best way to avoid injury to Spetland and the officers was to use pepper spray.
“Peters took a can of pepper spray from another officer, began shaking it so that Spetland could see it, and warned Spetland that, if he continued to threaten the officers, Peters was going to spray him,” the decision says.
When Spetland continued to struggle and cursed, Peters pepper sprayed him, “removed him from the wheelchair, and took him to the floor without causing him physical harm,” the decision continues.
A second legal issue in the case was whether “public policy” made it necessary to fire Peters.
The Appellate Court backed the arbitrators’ order to reinstate Peters largely based on its conclusion that the arbitration panel had used the correct legal standard in finding that Peters’ use of force was reasonable.
“Because the panel found that Peters’ use of force was objectively reasonable, we conclude that Peters’ conduct does not strike at the core of the public policy against police officers’ use of excessive force,” Clark wrote for the Appellate Court.
Joining Clark in the decision were Judges Jose A. Suarez and Hope C. Seeley.
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