Allan Appel Photo
Widow Virginia Candelaria (center).
After the family of Oscar Santiago-Rivera gathered to say goodbye before his open casket, their grief flowed out into the streets as dozens of mourners followed his hearse down Blatchley Avenue in an anti-police brutality march.
Tuesday afternoon’s march was sparked by questions raised by family members in the wake of the death of Santiago-Rivera. The 51-year-old, who had serious liver problems, died shortly after he was ejected from Lou’s Lodge in Fair Haven Aug. 20 and encountered New Haven cops. Relatives think police were too rough with Santiago-Rivera, who died at Yale-New Haven Hospital of what the hospital said was a ruptured spleen.
The details of the incident remain murky. The case is being investigated by the police department’s internal affairs division. Click here for a story about the incident.
Doel Santiago (center, in black suit).
“Too many things don’t make sense,” said Doel Santiago, Oscar’s brother, who initiated the march and then invited a coalition of anti-police brutality activists, including Unidad Latina en Accion and ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), to meet with him and to participate.
Their calls as they paraded down Blatchley towards Lou’s Lodge, where Santiago spent part of his last night, included “Justice for Oscar Santiago — End Police Brutality Now.”
The answers sought by Santiago-Rivera’s family may take weeks to arrive.
Mayoral spokesman Adam Joseph said, “The New Haven Police Department takes any allegation of police brutality seriously. The department has initiated an internal affairs investigation, as is standard in such cases. We can’t comment further until the medical examiner’s report is released and internal investigation is complete.”
A staffer at the the state medical examiner’s office said, “Both cause of death and manner of death are pending further studies to come back from the lab.” Asked to clarify, she said “further studies” means toxicology reports on, for example, blood and tissue. The full report usually takes between eight and 12 weeks.
Meanwhile, dozens of family members and friends of Santiago-Rivera filed into the storefront Pentecostal Iglesia Emanuel Revelacion Divina church on State Street near Ferry Street Tuesday afternoon, where the message above the coffin read “Santidad a Jehova” (“Holiness to the Lord”).
Amid hallelujahs and songs of praise accompanied by drums and tambourine, Santiago-Rivera was remembered as a good husband, brother and friend.
His faults were not overlooked either. The presiding pastor, Guillermo Torres, said, “If people say Oscar drank, and did bad things, they shouldn’t. Where he ends up is between him and God.” (Sister-in-law Elena Cummings provided the translation.)
Oscar Santiago-Rivera.
Dozens of people viewed his body, touching his hands — which held several pale red roses — and pausing before sitting down in pews adorned with black balloons. Cummings said they were to be sent aloft after the service, because Santiago-Rivera is being cremated, with no grave site for placing flowers.
When a memorial blanket with an image of Santiago-Rivera was unfurled, a gasp of emotion filled the small sanctuary.
Then the coffin was transferred to the waiting hearse, where mourners and activists queued up for a march beneath the overpass on State Street and down Blatchley Avenue.
Heading for Lou’s Lodge
Unidad Latina’s John Lugo said of the police, “Every time they do something, we will mobilize the community. Talking doesn’t produce results.”
He said there are several cases of alleged police brutality pending. One, involving Abel Sanchez, was settled for money about three months ago, Lugo said.
“We feel that’s not enough. Money doesn’t pay the suffering,” he said.
Norman Clement of ANSWER said he had no doubt that Santiago-Rivera’s case involved police brutality. The line of marchers arrived at Blatchley and Pine Street, where the arresting officers allegedly tangled with Santiago-Rivera amid bushes behind a gray stoop.
“They murdered a man on this corner,” Clement said.
Marchers at Blatchley and Pine.
He offered a solution: “If we put 1,000 people on the street corner next week, something will happen.”
By the time the marchers arrived at Lou’s Lodge, at the triangle where Blatchley meets Clay Street and faces the police substation, a group had gathered there.
Doel Santiago addressed them: “Today’s my brother. Tomorrow one of your family. I know some of you know and you don’t talk. Tomorrow can be your son, your brother. They killed my brother. We need your help.”
Santiago said he wants a full and complete investigation.
He pointed to a contradiction in the case, at least in terms of what’s publicly known: the police report says there was blood from an alleged knife fight on Santiago-Rivera, while the bar’s owner/manager, Anthony Ornato, told the Independent there had been no fight involving blood in his bar that night.
Motioning to the security camera high above the intersection, Doel Santiago wondered aloud why the camera can’t offer more definitive information.
“I’m contemplating a lawsuit against the city. We want the people who did this to be held responsible. We don’t want money,” he said.
Other next steps include possible larger marches with the anti-police brutality coalition members. “We’ll work with these people,” he said. Lugo agreed that the next step is up to the family.
Before the march dissipated, people were told they could find information about next steps through the family or via flyers to be distributed at C‑Town on Ferry.
Few of the watchers along Blatchley made comments or joined up, although several passing drivers honked horns. Ornato came out of Lou’s and offered quiet praise for the marchers: “I have no problem with their expressing themselves. They have every right. This is America.”
Gerard Joseph, a 20-year patron of Lou’s Lodge, said he hadn’t known Santiago-Rivera. But the patrons, he said, “all feel bad at a loss of life.”
A pic of the deceased is a bit much.