Aliyya Swaby Photo
Dolores Mariconde Dogolo.
Family members of an 81-year-old pedestrian struck and killed by a car blasted police for clearing the driver.
At a meeting at City Hall Tuesday night, Lisa Dogolo (at left in top photo), daughter of victim Dolores Mariconde Dogolo, joined Wooster Square neighbors in questioning why police concluded the driver of the car was not at fault in the collision that cost her mother her life.
Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova (pictured) offered his condolences to the family and offered to meet with them to continue running through the details of the investigation as many times as they wanted.
Though the criminal case against the driver is closed, family members said they had not yet decided whether they will bring civil charges against her.
Attorney Patricia Cofrancesco was driving the blue Audi that hit Dolores Dogolo at Olive and Greene Streets the morning of Oct. 30. The police investigation, concluded early this month, found there was no reason to charge Cofrancesco with a crime, since Dolores Dogolo “was “crossing diagonally and was not within the unmarked crosswalk at the moment of the collision,” according to a police release. “The pedestrian had only stepped one pace over the double yellow line when she was struck. The driver would not have perceived the pedestrian as a threat until she stepped over the line.”
Cofrancesco was traveling at a “minimum” of 24.07 miles per hour in a zone with a 25 mph speed limit, the investigation found. Dolores was five feet outside of the crosswalk when she was hit.
No “Vulnerable User”
“The report blames my mother,” Lisa Dogolo said to Lt. Rob Criscuolo (pictured left with top neighborhood cop Sgt. Tammi Means) as he fielded questions Tuesday night. Though she read the report three times, Lisa said, many questions remain unanswered, including the driver’s exact speed at the time of the accident and whether the driver was paying attention to the road before hitting Dolores. “Where was the driver looking when this happened?”
Lisa said that the driver’s “minimum” speed was not a useful measure for determining whether she exceeded the speed limit. “It’s like saying a minimum didn’t exceed a maximum. That’s obvious,” she told the Independent after the meeting. The part of the final report that is supposed to contain the driver’s exact speed is blank, she said. The driver said she was driving in first gear.
She attended the meeting with her cousin Cynthia Nargi and her sister Marlo Giangrande. They said they aere “not seeking vengeance. … We just want a fair investigation.”
Assistant State’s Attorney David Strollo reviewed the case and found no evidence for a case against the driver.
“The pedestrian was found to be at fault for this collision for improper use of the roadway,” Criscuolo said Tuesday night. He said there is no difference between an unmarked and a marked crosswalk, in the way accidents are investigated.
Rob Rock, a cycling activist, said the double yellow line was “the most visible place for the pedestrian to be,” and said the driver probably was not watching the road ahead. He questioned why police had found no cause for prosecution under the new state “vulnerable users” law that went into effect Oct. 1 adding fines of up to $1,000 on drivers guilty of “carelessly injuring or killing” non-drivers.
Criscuolo said there was no evidence to show the driver was distracted, was using a cellphone or was driving too fast. Therefore that law was not applicable, he said. No cases have yet been prosecuted under the vulnerable users law across the state.
“The culture is blaming the victim,” said neighbor Edward Anderson. “Either [the driver] was speeding or she wasn’t paying attention, or Ms. Dogolo would be here today.”
Hill Alder Dolores Colon asked whether the police checked the driver’s cell phone records. Criscuolo responded that the driver did not own a cellphone; she was carrying her sister’s cell phone in a bag in the back seat, and it was turned off.
“Were the actual records of the cell phone checked?” Lisa Dogolo asked. “Regardless … the bottom line is that this woman wasn’t paying attention to where she was driving. It’s the burden of the driver to be responsible. I don’t care about the goddamn crosswalk.”
Heidi Korrick, who works at Elm City Market, said she had joined Dolores on many walks through the neighborhood. She asked Criscuolo whether Dolores’ body was dragged by the car. He began to explain the results of the evidence, when Korrick interrupted, “So yes, she was dragged.” She said since there were no skid marks, it was clear the driver had not stopped.
“I walk that every day. You are wrong. You are so wrong. There’s no way this woman should be dead,” Korrick said, fighting back tears and “curse” words.
Back To Traffic Fixes
The question of how to make Olive Street safer had been posed before Dolores’ death, noted Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg. Neighbors brainstormed traffic “quick fixes” for the residential street in November. Greenberg said city transit chief Doug Hausladen and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn will present proposals next month.
“Why not put the traffic light back there?” Dolores’ niece Nargi asked. She said she remembers it being there when she was a child growing up in Wooster Square. The light was taken down in the early 1980s; replacing it would prevent accidents at the intersection of Olive and Greene, she said.
Several neighbors called on the police to better enforce traffic laws for drivers. “You can do whatever you want in a car in New Haven,” Rock said. Criscuolo and Casanova agreed enforcement is necessary, but said it is only a small part of changing drivers’ behavior.
Enforcing those violations does not financially benefit the city, since most of the money from fines goes to the state. Still, Casanova said, the department is increasing the size of the traffic division as well as focusing officers’ attention on traffic violations.
Casanova apologized for not being able to offer the family and neighbors better news.
“We have to go by the evidence on the scene to find out how we can prosecute,” Casanova said. When a police officer was run over and killed in Wooster Square, “it was hard to tell his family we couldn’t charge the driver,” he said.
All three family members said they will take Chief Casanova up on his offer to further discuss the details of the investigation.
“I would like some answers that the final police report didn’t answer,” Lisa told the Independent. Criscuolo did not know the answers to all the questions, because he had not headed the investigation; Lisa said it “would have been helpful” to talk to the officer who had.
Nargi and Giangrande (pictured) told the Independent they were heartened by neighbors’ support. “My kids ask for their grandmother every day,” Giangrande said.
The holiday season was difficult for them to handle after Dolores died, they said. Nargi said she invited extended family to her Branford home this past Thanksgiving and found herself missing her aunt’s eggplant parmesan. “She was a vibrant woman who walked every day,” she said.
What on earth is an unmarked crosswalk? Look at Google Maps Street view for that intersection. There's no indication whatsoever of where you should cross. (Plus, drivers in New Haven almost never stop at marked crosswalks). So whether or not this woman crossed within an invisible line--invisible to both driver and pedestrian--is the difference between being at fault and not at fault?