Naugatuck Police Chief Cleared After Probe Of Child's Racist Rant

NAUGATUCK, CT — Two independent investigation into the racist social media posts by the daughter of Naugatuck Police Chief Steven Hunt has cleared the chief of any wrongdoing, the department announced Friday.

A 43-page report by the Rocky Hill-based law firm Karsten & Tallberg, LLC, and another report by Hartford-based law firm Michelson, Kane, Royster & Barger, P.C., both conclude that Hunt did not previously know of the racist messages, nor did he do anything in the capacity of his job to facilitate them.

As a result, Hunt is not facing termination in connection with the incident.

"After a thorough review of the relevant undisputed facts, and having considered the applicable legal standards, this investigator concludes that there was no misconduct by Chief Hunt regarding the Snapchat posts created by his Child sufficient to warrant any disciplinary action," attorney James Tallberg wrote in the report. "It is obvious, based on other information set forth below, that this incident has undermined efforts that Chief Hunt himself has made to address racial diversity within the ranks of the Naugatuck Police Department. But there is no evidence that Chief Hunt is responsible, legally, for the dissemination of the original posts, or their subsequent public disclosure."

The report continues, "Allegations have surfaced on social media since the snaps were publicly disclosed claiming that the Naugatuck Police Department in general is racist, or more specifically, that Chief Hunt is racist. This investigator concludes that those allegations are unfounded. To the
contrary, as more fully articulated above, the Naugatuck Police Department is ahead of most of its peer law enforcement agencies in Connecticut in terms of accreditation, minority recruitment, and training its officers regarding Fair and Impartial Policing and Implicit Bias."

Hunt's daughter sent the messages via Snapchat two years ago when she was 13 years old. In them, she made multiple references to committing violence against Black people, and other racist comments, and also mentions that her father is the police chief. She sent the messages privately to a boy she had a crush on at the time, and he released screenshots of them publicly two years later.

The incident led Hunt and his wife, Johnna Hunt, an assistant principal at Naugatuck High School, to release a statement apologizing for the messages and condemning them. They also vowed to continue to love and support their daughter.

Some in the community called for Hunt to resign after the messages were made public, and outraged students at the high school also staged a walk-out to protest the incident. The Waterbury NAACP also is investigating the incident.

Click here to view the Karsten & Tallberg, LLC, report; click here to view the Michelson, Kane, Royster & Barger, P.C., report.