The consent decree allowed Judge Blumenfeld to acknowledge the harm caused to the plaintiffs in Cintron v. Vaughan without finding the HPD liable for constitutional violations. The document is divided into Operations, Recruitment and Promotion, and Training as the distinct categories of procedural improvement. Following extensive negotiations between the parties, the settlement mostly reaffirms existing police guidelines in each category—such as the internal review of complaints, arrest protocol, a bulletin about avoiding racial slurs, and sensitivity training—but does set several new amendments such as banning the use of chemical spray on children who appear to be under twelve years of age, a lowered height requirement for police applicants, and increased frequency of firearms training. The settlement is entered by both parties and the court “without reference to the affirmance or denial of the allegations contained in the Plaintiffs’ complaint,” but invites accountability in the form of contempt motions filed against the defendants should they fail to follow the stipulations.   

Reactions to the implementation of the agreement vary, as many activists and community members believe that it does not touch on every factor of concern. A spokesman for the Concerned Citizens of Bellevue Square, a local organization tracking police conduct in Hartford’s North End, states that the consent decree is “still not what we were shooting for. There’s still a lot of areas that have not been covered,” such as police entering houses without warrants. (Source) Chief Vaughan asserts that the decree would only affect “greater awareness on the part of the community as to what we are doing,” and would not change actual police practices. (Source) 

Judge Blumenfeld’s case history as a federal judge was generally liberal. He would eventually rule firmly against the actions of the police in the 1983 case of Tracey Thurman v. Torrington. Thurman filed a lawsuit against the city of Torrington and the Torrington Police Department for violating her civil rights by not protecting her against a violent and abusive husband. Blumenfeld sided with Thurman, arguing that the police should have done more to protect Thurman and other women experiencing domestic violence. 

Judge Blumenfeld’s ruling in Cintron is situated in a larger context of consent decrees nationally. Consent decrees as a form of accountability originated after the Clayton Antitrust law in 1918, as a means of resolving a dispute between two parties without an admission of guilt or wrongdoing. Consent decree settlements emerged in cases of corporate disputes as a way to ensure that companies were following the same regulatory laws. These settlement agreements allowed for companies to be held accountable, oftentimes in an area of public concern, to improve certain elements of their business. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the first cases of socially-focused consent decrees were implemented as a way to increase racial diversity within companies and public service departments. Across the country from Springfield, Massachusetts to San Francisco, California, consent decrees were implemented as a means to reform predominately white police departments to better reflect a diverse community. In Springfield in the early 1970s, after “several lawsuits alleged that Boston police and fire departments discriminated against Black and Hispanic candidates while hiring incoming officers,” an agreement was reached to change the racial breakdown of the police and fire department (Springfield Mass. Police). Cintron v. Vaughan figures into this history as one of the first of its kind, as a consent judgment correcting not only racial discrimination in hiring but prejudicial behavior in police activity as well. Cintron v. Vaughan sets a precedent for similar cases to follow, emerging as the longest running consent decree against a police department.