After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, a task force appointed by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu called for state police training regulators to update their antiquated database so that they could track “wandering officers”: those police officers who commit misconduct at one department, only to find a job at another because they maintained their state certification.
“We don’t pull enough certifications from police officers,” former Bartlett police chief Janet Hadley Champlin testified before the New Hampshire Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency Commission in July 2020. “I know of some police officers whose conduct that I think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe they’re still a police officer.’”
Included in her recommendations to the commission, also called the LEACT commission, was a call to improve the state database “that will specifically track problem officers who move, or attempt to move, to and from law enforcement agencies within the state.”
Published by New Hampshire Bulletin, 2024. Reporting by Sam Stecklow.