Report Lists Top Reasons Why Newtown Police Officers Pull Over Your Vehicle

A recent report by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project found that the Newtown Police Department conducted 9,402 traffic stops from Oct. 1, 2013 through Sept. 30, 2014, the highest among all municipal departments in the state.

The reasons a Newtown police officer is likely to pull you over include: 49 percent; speeding infractions; 9.6 percent; cell phone offenses, 11.7 percent; defective lights, 3.5 percent; display of plates, 0.1 percent; equipment violation, 4.8 percent; moving violation, 2.8 percent; registration offense, 1.1 percent; seatbelts, 7.3 percent; stop signs, 0.2 percent; suspended license, 5.7 percent; failure to obey traffic control signals, 0.1 percent; window tint and 3.2 percent; other.

The town had one of the highest speeding stop rates among all municipal departments.

The good news is you are more likely to get a written or a verbal warning rather than an infraction.

According to the report, among the 9,402 stops, officers gave a ticket 25 percent of the time, a written warning 46 percent of the time and a verbal warning 26 percent of the time.

Of Newtown’s total traffic stops 5.01 percent are for Black drivers and 86.52 percent of those stops involve non-residents, according to the report. Hispanics account for 4.72 percent of Newtown’s traffic stops and 86.26 percent of those involve non-residents, the report states.

Overall, 3,763 resident stops were made in Newtown with 3.64 percent of these stops accounting for minority residents. Newtown’s minority population comprises 7.47 percent of its total population that is of legal driving age.

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