Lawyer: Cox On Breathing Tube, Paralyzed Below Chest; 3 More Cops On Leave In Prisoner-Van Case

NHV has a lot of great cops that treat wildly belligerent people with patience and dignity. They've been embarrassed by the officers handling Mr Cox.

This is definitely the right thing to do. But it will necessarily increase spending on NHPD overtime.

Not a huge fan of the mayor usurping the police chief and commenting, but whatever. This Mayor seems to love attention. I like Rush-Kittle though. No BS, no pulling punches and tap dancing. These cops are on leave too, here's why, situation is unacceptable. Good job, right to the point. That type of direct speak increases public confidence and trust in the police investigation.

@ DVelleca - I appreciate where you are coming from.

Unfortunately too many of us in New Haven doubt the NHPD is at all capable of being self-accountable. Therefore the involvement of the Mayor is absolutely necessary.

An man who recovered from a paralyzing injury, with proper, immediate care:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/99259

Hearing a lot about how there are tons of "good cops" that treat folks with dignity and noting that none of the cops Richard Cox came into contact with that night treated him with dignity. Perhaps the whole bunch has been "spoiled" so-to-speak.

Robn: Officer Diaz treated Cox with patience and dignity, in spite of Cox having been banging just before his injury. (If Cox had stayed on the floor stomping his feet, he would likely be okay.). The disrespect and wild manhandling was led by Segui , who was contemptuous of Cox, seeming to think that drunkness or a lack of will was causing his behavior.

What's the speed limit on Division / Mansfield - if it's more than 25 MPH - The camera shows 36 MPH before the stop. Shoot, that is pretty much the ballgame there. At minimum speeding, reckless endangerment 2nd, maybe 1st. Moving the subject has to violate the new duty of care laws when they are complaining of not being able to move or injured.

@JohnD - looking at the footage - the conversation about adding the risk of injury to minor changes at the substation before the transport? It seems the impetus to bring that charge was a direct result of the cops being yelled at. Thoughts?

@Robn - If there are truly good, then why not come out and say this was BS?

This is going to become a national news story, and a black eye for the city and nhpd, very quickly.

@ wayfaringstranger multiple cops on the original scene brought an armed felon into custody without violence and with dignity. There are plenty of good cops in New Haven who give a shit about trying to help make the community safer while getting no respect and a whole lot of bullshit from folks like Thomas Breen and Mask Lord Elicker in return.

While I’m a big law enforcement supporter the actions by these officers are awful and wrong in the most egregious way. And dope could see that this suspect was not just drunk by terribly injured. Bad cops like this make the majority of good cops look awful and they are painted with the bad cop brush. Shameful behavior

The Mayor, Interferer in Chief, should let Chief Jacobson do his job. Stop horning in.

The cops that arrested Cox were exemplary in how they conducted the search and later arrest. Diaz was given faulty equipment in the form of a van that could have become a death trap. The actions that followed the accident reflected a callous disregard for the suspect (Cox) who was in the care of the officers that processed his detention. The words directed at him, the way they dragged him out of the van and into the cell is a sad commentary only on the officers in question. We have great officers on our force who do indeed serve and protect. Sadly, the officers who handled this so poorly, look just like Richard Cox. Character and not color defines the man or woman. Please remember this. Finally, we need to provide the best equipment for our officers and continue to train them to respect the dignity of fellow humans in a country that respects the presumption of innocence even when preliminary evidence points to guilt. The Mayor, acting chief, and Deputy Chief Jacobson have taken the moral high ground and are our hope for the future in troubled times. Ad hominen attacks against either of them are baseless and petty.

I don't own the rights to this music.

KRS-One - Sound of da Police (Official Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZrAYxWPN6c

@wayfaringstranger you show us you had a bad personal experience with officers, that has unfortunately given you a slighted view on officers in general, which is illogically based.

Assuming you watched the ENTIRE video, you can see the officers on scene did an excellent job, many of them minority officers and obviously young. But yea, keep preaching that "where are all the 'good' cops" nonsense. Can't have an honest conversation if you're extremely biased based off-of the videos presented to the public. Also your type of comments deter young black/brown minorities from signing up to become officers, which we NEED badly.

Anywho, as I mentioned yesterday, glad the other three cops were put on admin leave. Doesn't mean they are horrible people or even officers, but they made an incredibly stupid mistake in not getting Cox medical attention immediately upon seeing his condition.

Law enforcement seemingly more and more, appears to be one of the few professions where if you make a mistake, even after potentially years of having a great career, you will take the L plain and simple.

Cops don't get paid enough to deal with the everyday violence of this city and decades of "good" ol' Democratic "leadership." Turns my stomach to see my community vote for the same corny politicians for decades and this city is just as raggedy in leadership, in serving our children and the community.

Bless the young officers coming on that are expected to deal with these nuts in New Haven, with the least amount of staffing in decades, ineffective city leadership (Cahoots errrr Compass is coming soon right?), old equipment and 25 years of service with a pretty horrible retirement. Ummmm yea, and we expect these officers to pour themselves into their service work right? Sure you're right.

I know I can't be no cop, but I'm waiting for some of you lifelong NHI folks that comment all the time to step up and grab an application. At least go on a ride along for some perspective.

A dog at the New Haven dog pound is treated with more dignity and respect than this human being in police custody. If the officers treated a dog the same way they treated Cox they would be charged with animal cruelty. Cox, like all Americans, is protected by the Constitution, and is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The Mayor has every right to speak out against police brutality just like anyone else who saw that videotape. If the Mayor did not say anything he shouldn't be Mayor. Last year a guy was tackled and punched in the head repeatedly by an officer of the NHPD, while another officer told him to stop: https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/what_happened_before_head_punches
The blue wall of silence needs to come down. Officers need to speak out against fellow officers who make all officers look bad and give the public a very dim view of law enforcement. How are prosecutors supposed to convince juries that officers follow the laws that everyone else is expected to follow?

The bigger concern here is, this is speaking to a colcure in the NHPD, which is why promoting from within isn’t always good for the department. How many other detainees are getting this type of treatment the public doesn’t know about. NHPD need a strong Chief that will focus more on preventing this type of behavior by holding everyone accountable and top down discipline.

It is interesting that law enforcement are the only folks who have an expectation of respectful treatment from their “customers” on the job, who if they don’t receive it act with deadly consequences in return. As Donald Draper once said, “that’s what the money’s for.” I only wish every employer had the backs of their employees as much as law enforcement. Administrative leave? Now that’s a good union.

I have lived in New Haven for 20 years and have never found the NHPD to be helpful, considerate, or concerned with the safety of citizens. I have reported crimes in progress five times and been treated like a criminal or a nuisance. Every interaction with NHPD has included the question: "Are you affiliated with Yale?" It is clear where their affiliations lie.

I was taught as a child to respect the Police and look to them for help when in need. In New Haven I learned that is not true. They lost my respect along time ago through experience. Accountability is long overdue.

I'd urge everyone to remain objective and wait until the investigation is complete. This should not be compared to Freddie Gray because in the Gray case that was substantiated as a "rough ride." Further, the DOJ found the overall culture of the BPD was abusive and a place where such actions were given tacit approval by police command. Also, Gray had very distinct injuries that caused his death and the medical examiner was able to connect those injuries to police actions. In this case, the abrupt stop was legitimate to avoid an accident and I've seen enough to believe that the wagon driver was not engaging in giving Cox a "rough ride." It is possible that if Cox was sitting in the seat holding the strap, he would not have gone flying into the wall. Instead, Cox wanted to be disruptive and continually kick at the rear door of the van, which put his body in a position to sustain injury in the event of an abrupt stop. My concern is that Cox was never instructed to sit on the bench and hold the strap for his own safety, so he may not have even known to do so. The response sucks, period. A bunch of other things could have been done but weren't. However, we are all aware that the decision to continue on to detention was the wrong one. As for what happened in detention, we should let the investigation sort that out because the statements from each of those officers will be very important in judging their behavior. The big problem is the same as it has been for years, all the way back to when I was there. We put together great policies, but our training on these policies is half-assed and worthless. We spend most of our time during In-Service training learning about socio-political issues like how to avoid offending a member of the LGBTQ+ community in the event we have an interaction with them. That type of sensitivity training is important, but so is a lot of the operational police work stuff that gets replaced by these trainings. (Continued...)

We have rank and file officers who don't follow policy because we have faulty supervision that never holds them accountable to do so. People are promoted based off a civil service ranking that has been achieved by taking a test, instead of leadership ability. You can have the shittiest cop ever who studies hard for a promotional exam and scores super high. Now that shitty cop is promoted and becomes an even shittier supervisor. This is how these incidents occur, don't blame the Chief of Police. How many incidents have we seen over the past couple years where policy articulately stated the necessary actions to be completed, but the policy was not followed? In addition, there seems to be front-line supervisors that are pulling decisions out of their ass because they don't even know the policy! Instead of looking in the policy manual, they call another supervisor, who is equally as clueless, for advice. There is a serious lack of supervision at the NHPD, which has been the case for years. Supervisors are concerned with being popular instead of efficient and responsible. Any supervisor who attempts to hold the officers accountable is deemed an asshole. I'm sure I pissed off a lot of officers with hyper-supervision at times, but I couldn't care any less. My job was not to make friends, it was to get the job done the right way. The wagon driver should have known the policy and followed it, but he broadcasted everything that was happening over the radio for everyone to hear. A street supervisor should have been monitoring this incident and intervened. I'll say again, these incidents are the result of poor front-line supervision and a lack of accountability by police command. Know your job, know your policies and do as you are instructed. Accidents and mistakes will always happen, they're unavoidable. But if you follow policy, you at the least shield yourself and the city from liability. The city will pay on this incident for sure, only a matter of $$$$$

Police stop the public on a regular basis for seat belt violations and it’s the law but apparently that doesn’t apply to police or the vehicles they use. Only in America

I fully support the decisions of these officers they did not use force in any way. They called AMR, they were not unprofessional in any manner. They broke their backs in trying to move this felon who was arrested on gun charges. this same man walking around new haven carrying a gun. This man was blowing kisses at the female officer and female sergeant with his hands chuckling. So he thinks it’s a joke these officers are stressing out

When my husband was an officer over 10 years ago, he said there was a policy on calling for help. They also learned how to recognize medical issues such as neck injuries in which you tried not to move them if possible. There weren't seat belts which is being remedied now but I'm thinking with such a young group of officers and no long term memory from older working officers, they should go over these things more often. Why no officer remembered protocol is something that is being shown across the US, training has to be better and retraining just to make sure it is not forgotten.This incident didn't have to get to this point sadly.

It doesn't take policy, procedure, police training or a medical background to see that Mr. Cox couldn't move a bone in his body and was clearly paralyzed. Do these officers "of the law" have any common sense or a human bone in their bodies? To even debate about policies and procedures borders on the absurd.

The Family of Cox.....Cha Ching.....City of New Haven get the checkbook out!

It’s pretty obvious that the police training and the police culture need to change and accountability needs to happen when police don’t follow their training and proper procedures.
The commenters mostly have made it clear in the NHI articles on this topic that the public expects more of its police.
We expect that arrestees be physically safe from harm while in police custody, and be treated with dignity and respect for a fellow human being, and follow timely and medically appropriate procedures if the suspect is injured, regardless of the accused alleged crimes, regardless of their previous behavior, regardless if they are under the influence, or if they are having a mental illness episode, or are uncooperative. Just because an arrestee is behaving badly, does not give the police the right to use more than the minimum force necessary to subdue the suspect, and does not mean that the arrestee should be subjected to verbal or physical harm. If you can’t keep your cool under these types of situations, with persons behaving poorly, then you shouldn’t be a police officer.
From what I saw of the videos of the arresting officers, they did their job properly, but the transport officer did not follow proper procedure and did not take the proper actions to prevent further injury and stay in place after the traffic incident and get immediate care for the arrestee.
And those who assisted the driver at the police station removing the arrestee from the vehicle showed callous disregard and disdain as well as ignorance of basic first aid protocols for back or neck injuries, and may have caused additional harm to the arrestee by manhandling him and not immediately calling for medical attention.
I sincerely hope that the highest levels of command in the NHPD review with every single employee the proper procedures for handling any future events like these, and to make absolutely clear that the behavior displayed at the station is unacceptable, and will not be tolerated.

I agree with John v, this is a supervision issue particularly street bosses, which are Sargent’s, I know Diaz and do not believe it was intentional however policy is policy. To the officers in detention, smh showed no compassion, the Sargent even sad Cox, either come out or you will lay there till AMR comes, something to that affect, and to further exacerbate his injuries the black officer slammed him in the wheel chair, while man handling him at the same time. It should also be noted that he should have be monitored and not shackled at the feet because he wasn’t in non compliance. All should and will get disciplined.

This will take a long time to play out and there are many unknowns. Just a few :

Do the actions of the detention officers rise to the level of being criminal?
Will Biden's Justice Department get involved and look to see if there is a pattern of bad behavior in the detention center?
Does the city need to review and overhaul the entire detention process?
Does this one incident impact Mayor's appointment to the position of Chief?