Chief Karl Jacobson (at left in photo): Not waiting on the courts.
File body cam
Officer Nesto.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson isn’t waiting for the slow wheels of the criminal court to finish turning before looking into why one of his allegedly “n‑word” slinging officers was arrested for allegedly harassing trick-or-treaters.
The officer in question is Lindsey Nesto. Wallingford police arrested her three weeks ago on a warrant in connection with a Halloween incident that occurred at her sister’s home in that town. Nesto has not yet entered a plea to the second-degree breach of peace charge in the case.
Meanwhile, Jacobson said Thursday that he has placed her on administrative leave pending the resolution of her case — and of an internal affairs (IA) investigation he has ordered into the incident.
In the past the department has usually waited until the resolution of criminal cases against cops before launching IA probes. In one case involving a high-ranking officer, the case stretched out for years — allowing him to retire with a full pension rather than face internal department consequences.
The NHPD has changed that approach in the past year, beginning with an IA probe of five officers launched immediately following an incident in which they roughly handled arrestee Richard “Randy” Cox, who landed in the hospital with injuries that partially paralyzed him.
“Sometimes it just takes too long” to wait for criminal cases to resolve, Jacobson said Thursday about the policy shift.
The Wallingford police account of the incident contained in Nesto’s arrest warrant application was written by Officer Alexander Gigas. Gigas stated that it involved two 14-year-olds and one 13-year-old who “got tired” while trick-or-treating and sat on a curb at Mellor Road and Bernadette Lane around 8:30 p.m. near the home of Nesto’s sister.
Nesto, who’s 37, was visiting her sister that night. The sister later told police that Nesto was backing out of the driveway when she “appeared to be yelling” at the kids “to get off the lawn.”
“At some point in the interaction Nesto began to run after the juveniles.”
The sister said “she did not think the juveniles had been doing anything wrong,” that “they probably had stopped at the corner to take a break.” She said she told the teens “that everything was ok and that her sister was dealing with a lot because of her job and that her partner had recently been shot.”
Two neighbors showed Gigas surveillance video footage of the incident.
A female voice on the video tells the teens to “get moving” and “keep it moving, get off my grass,” Gigas wrote.
One video shows the beginning of the incident, Gigas wrote: Nesto backs out of the driveway. A female voice states, “Get moving” and “Keep it moving, get off my grass.” The teens start walking away. “Do something about it,” a voice states. Nesto exits her vehicle and yells back, “Do something about what?” and then follows the teens while still yelling.
The second video captures Nesto running after the teens and, using a racial slur for Black people, telling them, “I’m gonna fuck you up, n — — .”
The sister then drives up. “Lindsey, get your ass in the car,” she says, which Nesto does.
The teens told Officer Gigas a similar account. One quoted Nesto as saying, “I’m gonna snap your fucking neck” before running after them.
The report also quotes Nesto giving her side to Officer Gigas: “Nesto stated that she initially asked the juveniles to leave calmly before telling them to ‘keep it moving’ when they did not respond and felt at this point they were trespassing on the property.” She said she got out of her car when one teen asked her, “What are you gonna do about it?” She denied having left the scene after “the juveniles took off running.”
NHPD’s Internal Affairs division has investigated Nesto before. She was found to have violated department rules in 2018 for her handling of a traffic stop involving a man whom a woman said had just sexually assaulted her at gunpoint; she and two colleagues “re-victimized” the woman while letting the man go, and Nesto threw a key piece of evidence (a knife) over a bridge into the West River. The man went on to sexually assault more women until police eventually arrested him. Nesto and two fellow officers also received retraining, but not discipline, for their 2017 tasing and overall handling of an emotionally disturbed man inside a Whalley Avenue convenience store.
"... sat on a curb at Mellor Road and Bernadette Lane around 8:30 p.m. near the home of Nesto’s sister."
It is unclear whether the curb was on a public street or on Nesto's property.
This officer already has some dings on her record. The change in procedure appears to be a good move.
No one wants to wait for another Cox case.