Column: State bows to tribes on law enforcement at casinos

Wednesday, February 27, 2013  

"It's a puzzle to me why Gov. Malloy would be so insistent about withdrawing a sizeable portion of the Connecticut State Police presence at the state's two Indian casinos when the tribes are clearly responsible for continuing to pay for it.

Not only is it strange that the governor would be so willing to diminish the state's police coverage of these two enormous gambling joints, but in order to do it he has to ask the legislature to convey on tribal police extraordinary authority over non-Indians.

Mashantucket Pequot Chairman Rodney Butler, while swearing in some of the new tribal police officers he hopes will soon be able to arrest non-Indians, called the governor's plan a "novel initiative" and historic.

The head of the police union, on the other hand, calls the proposal a dangerous threat to public safety. Worse, he notes, you shouldn't have casinos policing themselves. "

Get the Story:
David Collins: Malloy, like Rowland, bows to tribal pressure to withdraw police (The New London Day 2/27)