Allan Appel Photo
Doel Santiago (with Virginia Candelario, Oscar’s wife): “We need someone to find out what happened.”
Oscar Santiago-Rivera drank his last Budweiser at Lou’s Lodge Saturday night. After causing a ruckus, he ended up out on the street, in a tussle with the cops, in the hospital — and then dead.
Shell-shocked family members interviewed Monday afternoon said they don’t believe the official police version of the incident. They suggested that the cops may have contributed to Santiago-Rivera’s death.
“The police are supposed to protect you,” said Marisol Rosario, the dead man’s sister. “It doesn’t matter if he was resisting arrest. The last people who got hold of him is the police. He was [either] abused by the police or something happened in the bar. And it wasn’t in the bar.”
The incident, details of which remained murky Monday, occurred around 10 p.m. at the tavern at Blatchley Avenue and Clay Street across from the Fair Haven police substation.
Police Monday initially asked New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington to investigate the incident. No evidence has emerged to suggest that cops acted improperly, Assisant Police Chief John Velleca said. But because details aren’t clear, and because police officers were involved, he felt an “independent agency” should look at the incident “to be safe.”
But by day’s end the New Haven police were launching an internal investigation under the direction of Assistant Chief Petisia Adger. “It’s their case,” Dearington said in an interview. “Right now it’s appropriately with them.”
Santiago Rivera, who was 50, was a Saturday night regular at Lou’s. He lived down the block. He had an extensive criminal history: He recently pleaded guilty to drug and motor vehicle charges, for instance, and previously served three years in jail on drug charges. He also had a medical history: he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver.
Primo “In A Mood”
Santiago Rivera had been at Lou’s drinking beer for about four hours Saturday evening, according to co-owner Anthony Ornato. At the bar people knew him as “Primo.”
“He wasn’t a bad person,” Ornato said. But on Saturday night “he was in one of his moods.”
About 15 people were in the bar Saturday night, Ornato said.
Primo seemed drunk and he started getting into conflicts with other patrons, Ornato said. At one point, “a girl went to put money in the jukebox.” Santiago Rivera started getting in the way, “pushing buttons,” Ornato said.
Allan Appel File Photo
Ornato.
Then Primo got in an argument with a different patron and pushed him, according to Ornato. That was enough. “I asked him to leave.” At no point did the tussle turn into a physical fight, Ornato claimed in an interview.
In his 58 years, Ornato said, he has rarely called the cops. He can usually handle potential trouble.
After his ejection Saturday night, Primo returned to the bar, trying to get back in, Ornato said. Ornato told him to leave. He did.
Primo came back again, in a baseball cap “disguise,” and peered through the neon Budweiser-adorned window. Ornato decided he needed to call the cops. So he did.
The Police Arrive
The initial dispatch call said a knife fight had taken place in the bar; then the dispatcher changed the description of the incident to a disturbance.
Officer Curtis Ray arrived within minutes.
According to a report Ray subsequently wrote, Ornato told him Primo had “got in a fight in the bar,” was ejected, then returned “presenting a knife” to the “individual he fought with earlier.” Ornato reported that Primo had left again.
Officer Ray reported catching up with Primo a block away. Fair Haven District Manager Sgt. Anthony Zona arrived on the scene.
“I ordered Rivera to stop and show me his hands. He continued to walk toward me and reached into his right pocket,” Ray wrote. “Rivera was subdued, put into the prone position, then handcuffed.
“I noticed blood on his head and shirt which was from his bar fight. There was a small amount on my ungloved hand.”
The police gave Primo a summons for disorderly trespass. Then they had him transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital for treatment “because of his level of intoxication.”
Primo’s sister showed up at Lou’s the next day. Ornato’s brother and co-proprietor Lou was on duty. She asked him what had happened the night before; her brother had later died in the hospital, she told him.
Anthony Ornato said he never knew about Primo’s liver problem.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have given him a beer,” he said. “I’d have said, ‘Go home.’ I look after the people. It’s a neighborhood place.”
Ornato also was adamant that a knife fight never took place in the bar.
Virginia Gets A Call
Elizabeth Santiago (mother), Doel Santiago (brother), Marisol Rosario (sister).
Primo’s wife, Virginia Candelaria, called police at 2:15 a.m. inquiring about his whereabouts. They had no information, she said.
A half-hour later, she got a call from Yale-New Haven. She thought it was her husband. “Where are you?” she asked. Then she realized it wasn’t her husband on the line.
“Mrs. Santiago,” the voice on the other line said, “are you in your house with other people?”
“What happened” she asked.
“How long will it take you to come to the hospital?”
The news was that Primo was in critical condition. Candelaria’s daughter drove her to hospital, where she learned that his internal bleeding was not under control, that the outcome looked grim. Candelaria noticed bruises all over his arms and body.
“Yes, he drank, but he was not a violent man,” Primo’s sister, Marisol, said in an interview. “My brother was the type of man who takes his shoes off and gives it to someone and comes home barefoot.”
The next day the family heard from a friend who claimed to be in the vicinity of the bar at midnight. This friend — who showed up for an interview with the Independent and declined to have her name published — claimed to see Primo still out on the street at midnight and getting beaten by police. She claimed that he told her, “They kicked me out [of the bar] ‘cause I had a fight with a blanco [white person].” (Assistant Chief Velleca said records from the ambulance service and the hospital clearly show Primo had already been transported to the hospital and was being treated by that that time.)
Autopsy Scheduled
At 12:45 p.m. Sunday the state medical examiner’s office called the police to report a scheduled autopsy for an “Oscar Santiago.” Police at first thought the call pertained to a different man named Santiago who had been knifed in a fight elsewhere in Fair Haven Saturday night, according to Assistant Chief Velleca. But it turned out that victim was still alive. Detective Sgt. Tony Reyes reviewed the other calls from the night and linked the call to the Lou’s Lodge incident.
The hospital reported that Primo had a ruptured spleen due to blunt force trauma. He died in the operating room from internal bleeding.
Police awaited an autopsy report from the medical examiner Monday. It came in as inconclusive — because the hospital had removed the spleen before sending the body up for the autopsy. The hospital was in the process of sending up the spleen on Monday so the examiner could do a more complete report, according to Velleca.
As they await those answers, police want to make sure independent eyes review the case, Velleca said. He stressed that police have no reason to believe Officer Ray acted improperly.
Important outstanding questions remain unanswered at this point, such as: Was there a knife fight in the bar? What was the cause of the blunt trauma to the liver? What exactly happened when police “subdued” Primo and “put [him] in a prone position?”
Oscar Santiago-Rivera leaves behind one daughter and five stepchildren; four granddaughters; and seven grandsons.
Sermarie Flores, a niece, said the family will miss him.
“He was a good uncle. He was always goofy, funny. I loved his hair cause it was so long. I like long hair. He loved his hair too,” she said.
Primo left behind instructions to be cremated. A service in his memory will take place Monday at Church of Emmanuel Divine Restoration at 1292 State St. beginning at 3 p.m.
cirhossis of the liver. Don't you have spell-check? CIRRHOSIS of the liver! Even this Comment section has it. . . and helpfully offered up the correct spelling. I would have thought better of NHI given its generally excellent journalism.