A Civilian Review Board (CRB) member spoke out against investigating police-misconduct complaints filed by people who are not Black, according to recently published meeting minutes — prompting pushback from other board members, who argued that a complainant’s race should not factor in to such decisions.
The comment at the center of that debate was made by CRB member Germano Kimbro — who later said he didn’t remember making such a comment, and still advocated for the board to focus on protecting the Black community when it comes to police misconduct.
The CRB is an independent police-oversight body that reviews complaints against the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) and can provide recommendations to officers and the chief of police regarding police conduct. Kimbro has served on the board since 2023.
Kimbro’s comment is summarized in recently published minutes from the CRB’s April 27 meeting.
The meeting minutes were written and compiled by the board’s chair, AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios. The Independent was not able to obtain an audio or video recording of the meeting; such a recording reportedly does not exist. Rivera-Berrios said that the board has been having problems in recent months with its Zoom account.
The relevant part of the April meeting minutes reads:
“Member Kimbro stated that he was concerned that public funds were being used on a case where the member was not of the black community. Member [Jean] Jenkins informed him that we take everyone’s complaints and deal with them equally no matter someone’s race and that she takes domestic issues serious and we all should as well. Chair Rivera Berrios stated that we take all complaints and deal with them equally it doesnt matter someones ethnicity or race and that shouldnt drive our investigations. He said he wanted it noted that he still thinks that our focus should be more on global concerns going on in the world related to the black community.”
In a follow-up interview with the Independent this week, Rivera-Berrios said, “We equally investigate all cases. If you look at the makeup of our city, what about the Asian community? What about the Latino community? A lot of people have complaints, and we can’t just prioritize one and not all. We have to take every single case and review it equally, which is what we’ve done to date.”
The April comment in question came in response to a vote that the CRB took during its March meeting, which Kimbro did not attend.
At that March meeting, other CRB members voted to assign an investigator to a complaint made by a woman who claimed that New Haven police officers’ friendship with her ex-husband led to “inaccurate reporting and selective enforcement” of a restraining order she had against him. The complainant in that case is white. In November 2025, the NHPD’s Internal Affairs (IA) division found that the complainant’s allegations of police misconduct against the two officers were unfounded, according to a report obtained by the Independent via a Freedom of Information Act request.
In an interview on Monday, Kimbro said that he disagreed with the board’s decision to assign an investigator to the woman’s case, but added that his statement may have been “based on a lack of information,” because he had not been present for the March meeting. “This was a divorce case, and I don’t know how it wound up before the Civilian Review Board,” Kimbro said.
In a second interview on Tuesday, Kimbro said, of his comment about the race of police-misconduct complainants: “I don’t feel that way, and I don’t remember making that statement. I’m not anti-police. I’m anti-abuse of power, no matter who it happens to.” He also said that “the recommendations that come across don’t always protect our community equally.”
According to Rivera-Berrios, all CRB members — including Kimbro — were asked to review the meeting minutes before they were published online, per board procedure. Members Jenkins and Sam Fawcett both confirmed the accuracy of the April meeting minutes. Fawcett told the Independent that there was a “remarkable silence” after Kimbro made his comment about not prioritizing investigating complaints made by non-Black complainants.
“I was taken aback,” she said.
The complainant attended the CRB’s March meeting and during time allotted for public comment presented her case against the police department. Only members who were present for the March meeting voted on whether to assign an investigator from Triangle Investigations to her case.
“He’s a Black man who’s concerned about police killing Black men,” Fair Haven Alder Frank Redente, another member of the CRB, said when asked about Kimbro’s comments during the April meeting. “He, in my opinion, felt maybe a domestic case was getting more attention than Black men being shot by police.”
In an interview with the Independent on Monday, Kimbro brought up the case of Randy Cox — a Black man who suffered paralyzing injuries while in city police custody in 2022 — and other incidents of violence against Black residents Kimbro had heard of. “There are cases with Black victims, and we haven’t given them the amount of attention that we gave this case,” he said.
Kimbro said he was coming from a “different set of lenses” than other board members. Redente said Kimbro had also wanted the CRB to look into two fatal police shootings: the killing of Jebrell Conley at Splash Car Wash in 2024 and the killing of Aaron Freeman in a Grand Avenue apartment in 2025.
Kimbro said he saw no evidence of “clear brutality” in the woman’s complaint that the CRB ultimately assigned an investigator to look into. “There are issues in the Black community we don’t even look at,” he said.
Fawcett said that the board does not review cases like those Kimbro brought up — police shootings, for example — because they are not related to the types of civilian complaints the CRB is responsible for. “The shootings, we don’t get,” she said.
Jenkins, who said she has not spoken to Kimbro since the April meeting, said she felt it was important the board take cases regarding both mental health and domestic violence very seriously: “For years, communities, especially communities of color, have brushed those two up under the rug and I think it needs to stop.”
“I don’t know why he brought color into it,” Jenkins said of Kimbro. “For me, domestic violence regardless of color, race, it’s domestic violence and I think it needs to be looked into. It is being looked into.” Fawcett agreed with Jenkins, saying that with any complainant, she reads the complaint file first and then watches body cam: “they could be from Mars and I don’t know,” she said.
Although he defended Kimbro’s interjection during the April meeting, Redente said the case should have been investigated despite Kimbro’s objections. “It’s not about the actual case. It’s about a resident having a complaint against a police officer. It is our duty to look into it. And if all is said and done, and that resident still has a problem with the decision, it is their right to come back to us and have us look at it again,” Redente said.
“We’re the watchdog,” Jenkins said of the CRB. Even if Internal Affairs decides a complaint is unfounded, “we dive deeper,” she said.
The April meeting minutes also show that Kimbro abstained from voting on a donation of $200 to the New Haven chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He said he chose to pass on that vote because he has filed a complaint with the NAACP against other members of the CRB.
Even though the case in question — which prompted Kimbro’s comment about the race of the complainant — has been closed by the NHPD, according to a memo Rivera-Berrios sent to Police Chief David Zannelli on June 22, the CRB recommends that the case remain open. That memo states that the case “currently remains an open investigation with the Investigator and needs to remain open until investigator is able to complete so board can provide their recommendations.”
