Gov. Ned Lamont on Wednesday said his office will bring in an outside "independent" firm to investigate after an audit released last month found there is a "high likelihood" hundreds of Connecticut State Police troopers collectively falsified tens of thousands traffic ticket records over much of the past decade.

"We're going to have an independent investigation to make sure this never happens again," Lamont told reporters Wednesday morning. He said he expected to name the firm in the coming days.

Lamont also revealed Wednesday the suspension of longtime Trooper Christopher Melanson earlier this week was related to ticket discrepancies

Lamont spokesman Adam Joseph said Melanson, who joined the force in 2006 and worked in the department's Traffic Services Unit, was suspended Monday "as a result of new protocols established in light of the audit to ensure the integrity of data being reported by troopers." State police officials have declined to specify what Melanson is accused of, citing an ongoing investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Unit.

Lamont said people should lose their jobs if it is determined they intentionally falsified records. Auditors cautioned their monthslong review did not attempt to determine if the widespread problems were intentional.

"We're looking at intentionality. Don't jump to conclusions. How much of this was inadvertent, how much of it was intentional. But if you're intentional, you're breaking the law, you shouldn't be a state policeman," Lamont said.

The moves come amid increasing public outcry over the audit's findings, which alleged systemic violations of state law and that the misreporting skewed racial profiling data making it appear troopers ticketed more white drivers and fewer minority motorists than they really did.

Lawmakers plan to hold a special meeting to discuss the audit next week, while the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has scheduled a community forum for Wednesday evening in Hartford and Black Lives Matter Hartford plans to hold a protest on Tuesday.

Lamont already asked the Office of Chief State's Attorney Patrick Griffin to investigate for potential criminal wrongdoing soon after the audit was released in late June.

But experts in recent days voiced concern that Griffin's office, which works closely with state police on a regular basis, would be too conflicted to conduct the probe, particularly since Griffin's office announced it is conducting the investigation jointly with the State Police Central District Major Crime Squad.

Specialists have also questioned why Griffin's office, after 10 months of investigating, has not decided whether or not to bring charges against four troopers who were previously caught fabricating tickets, particularly given that prosecutors appear to be running out of time under statute of limitations requirements.

Griffin's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Neither did officials at the union that represents troopers. State police declined to comment citing the ongoing criminal investigation.

In announcing plans to bring in an outside firm, Lamont said the firm will "look at how this happened, how we can make sure it doesn't happen, other technical issues — is it training issues, is it management issues."

"What is there about the platform — a lot of this started when we put in a new tech platform in 2014," he added. "What it means in terms of training. What it means in terms of leadership to make sure this never happens again."

Asked if he had spoken to the head of the state police, Colonel Stavros Mellekas, about the problems, Lamont said: "I have had some discussions, but I'm stepping back a little bit. It's time for the independent investigators to get to the bottom of this."

Lamont said his team is looking for a firm with "a good background to do this with the utmost integrity so you know we'll get to the bottom of this."

"We've got to do everything we can to build up the credibility for our state police who are so invaluable to what we do," Lamont said.

Joseph, Lamont's spokesman, said later Wednesday the governor's general counsel was working to select "a qualified outside firm" through the Attorney General's office, which typically reviews contracts state agencies enter.

The audit was conducted by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, a state-funded group that analyzes police citations to determine racial profiling trends.

Under state law, local police officers and state troopers must record certain demographic information about those they ticket and transmit that data to the group.

The audit found a "high likelihood" that at least 25,966 state police tickets were falsified between 2014 and 2021. Another 32,587 records over those years showed significant inaccuracies and auditors believe many of those are likely to be false as well.

The auditors emphasized their analysis was extremely conservative, and "the number of falsified records is likely larger than we confidently identified."

The findings showed significant numbers of false and inaccurate tickets were submitted by up to nearly one quarter of the 1,301 troopers who wrote tickets for the state's largest law enforcement agency during those years.

State police officials have stressed no drivers were actually issued fake tickets; officers only entered phony ticket information into databases.

The audit, which launched last fall, was prompted by a Hearst Connecticut Media Group investigation that uncovered internal records showing state police investigators in 2018 discovered four troopers had collectively entered at least 636 fake tickets into the state police computer system over a nine-month stretch to make it appear they were more productive than they actually were.

The troopers did so for their own personal benefit — to curry favor and perks from supervisors, internal investigators concluded.

While other phony ticket schemes have led to criminal charges against police officers in Connecticut and numerous other states, the four state troopers avoided serious consequences, even after Connecticut State Police supervisors discussed among themselves whether the troopers possibly violated criminal law.

The department sustained internal charges against the troopers, issued light discipline and kept the matter in-house for years until Hearst Connecticut Media unearthed internal investigation records last summer.

Soon after, Griffin's office opened a criminal probe into the four troopers.

Around the same time, the manager of the racial profiling project, Ken Barone, told Hearst Connecticut Media an official from the federal prosecutor's office called him to ask if the racial profiling data had possibly been compromised and whether federal funding may have been connected to the troopers who created fake tickets.

Also last fall, James Rovella, commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Service and Public Protection which oversees several agencies including state police, said officials were reviewing whether, at any point, federal money covered the salaries of the four troopers while they created fictitious tickets.

On Wednesday, when asked if officials had determined if tickets were falsified by troopers working on federally-funded shifts, Lamont said: "I can't speak to that, but believe me people are looking into that right now."

Asked if federal authorities were investigating the state police ticket problems, Lamont said "don't know that yet." Jospeh,

Lamont's spokesman said later Wednesday: "The Governor's Office has not received any notifications from federal law enforcement of an investigation."

The U.S. Attorney's office in Connecticut declined to comment Wednesday.