29 July—“State cops circle wagons” is a generic headline that’s always relevant and accurate. Same goes for any trade or profession, to be sure, but it’s particularly irksome when the most privileged people in the state evade and abuse the laws they’re sworn not just to uphold but to enforce.

This time, of course, I’m still on the case of State Police Sgt. Catherine Koeppel, who rammed a lawfully stopped car and fled the scene in Brookfield on Sunday night. She was off-duty but driving a police car, as all state cops do whenever they can and even when they’re not supposed to.

The story has been most thoroughly and accurately reported by Brigitte Ruthman in the Republican-American and severely cut and thoroughly botched on the few other sources that have even carried it.

Recently promoted Sgt. Koeppel was paid $209,000 last year, $95,000 of that in overtime. So far this year, she’s up to about $125,000, with about half of that as overtime. Maybe with all the overtime she’s been putting in, Kate simply fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of her foot, which pushed down the accelerator pedal. Or not.

After a superficial, perfunctory investigation by who knows whom, we don’t really know what caused Sgt. Koeppel’s car to ram into Jessica Gullusci’s stopped vehicle with such momentum that its trunk was, as Jessica said, in the passenger seat. A picture of the victim car confirms that. But the fuzz have sequestered the cop car, so we don’t know what its front end looks like. And probably never will. But evidently Kate was able to drive it to her home.

Sgt. Koeppel has finally been charged by her colleagues. With two misdemeanors. That’s all. Following too closely and evading responsibility. Following too closely is essentially an infraction with a maximum $150 fine. If it doesn’t cause an accident. But from the damage to the target car, Koeppel following too closely is a criminally gross understatement. It wasn’t just a minor fender bender, after all.

We still don’t know—and may never know—just why an experienced police officer with a creditable record would knowingly commit a crime—evading responsibility.

Evading responsibility can be a felony or simply a misdemeanor. In Sgt. Koeppel’s case, her pals have chosen to make it a misdemeanor. Wonder why? If convicted, it means she’ll be able to keep the juicy pension all her overtime will have entitled her to—in the best Connecticut State Police tradition, of course, thanks to the collusive irresponsibility of profligate state legislators. A felony conviction could cost her the pension.

Assume that Sgt. Koeppel had fallen asleep at the wheel and allowed her high-momentum projectile to crash into the stopped car, to be awakened only by the sudden impact. She then was able to reverse her car out of the carnage and drive it home. And then she called her CSP pals, probably not even a lawyer. So why not hang around—as required by the very law she’s sworn to enforce?

Could she have had something to hide? Two things come to mind. Speculatively, of course, because CSP isn’t allowing us to know anything but what they can’t conceal for one reason or another. Alcohol. And maybe, contrary to regs, Kate wasn’t even the driver.

In all events, I figure that in the circumstance Sgt. Koeppel will cop a guilty plea when she drops by court on 9 August. Why not? She has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Even now she’s earning full pay for supposedly doing administrative work while her police powers are suspended. If she’s not putting in overtime at the barracks right now, she’ll be sure to make it up . . .