Fired Cox Cop Van Driver Wins Arbitration

Disgusting. If Diaz had just kept to the speed limit, this tragedy wouldnt have occurred, Cox would still have a life, and New Haven taxpayers wouldnt be out $15 Million plus.

Diaz had a human being in the back of his paddy wagon, handcuffed and unsecured. Who would drive so recklessly, when there was zero need to hurry.

I hope the City ultimately prevails.

Diaz was appropriately fired. He stopped short severely injuring Cox and didn't call an ambulance immediately. He also did not (that we can see here) report the short stop. Also all of these cops acted criminally and should spend some time in jail.

The Mayor and Police Chief were responsible for the officers having inferior equipment. It seems they should have some punishment too.

I wanna start of by saying Im praying that the young man gets well such and unfortunate situation. Next I wanna say that me personally I dont think that the driver should lose his career behind this situation JUST MY OPINION! Why because again this situation was so unfortunate BUT hes were I differ we as individuals have to assume responsibility for our actions, before you all bash me just think about this for a few minutes, if this young man had not been walking through that neighborhood with a unregistered firearm which he didnt have a permit to carry, and carrying a bottle of alcohol acting in a way were the neighbors had to CALL the police guess what that young man WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN BACK OF THAY POLICE VAN! Should the driver had been suspended YES for not calling the paramedics after he stoped to AVOID AND ACCIDENT and noticed that the young man was injured yes he shouldve been suspended without pay for that, but to lose his career I just have to disagree with that just my opinion, I pray that the young man recovers from his injuries🙏🙏🙏

Process question- does the city escrow an employees pay when they appeal an unpaid suspension or termination? Such actions are often reversed, justly or unjustly. Escrowing the pay would not affect the ultimate cost to the city. But it would avoid having to come up with a large lump sum if the employee prevails.

If I am not mistaken, Linda Yelmini (the neutral arbitrator) was for many years the director of the states Office of Labor Relations.

Had he pulled over and waited for medical personnel as he should have, none of what followed would have happened. If the arresting officer didn't take it serious his colleagues probably fed off his demeaner and trusted the guy wasn't really injured as I'm sure ppl fake injuries all the time. But ALL alleged injuries should be taken serious.

The City of New Haven did not prove enough to legally fire him. This whole case is a tragedy and shows the worst of policing.

Why was Cox arrested?
Firing 5 cops certainly seems like over kill.

The city never learns from previous mistakes. Put a dress on Mayor Elicker and call him Toni Harp. She famously and quite publicly fired Nicole Jefferson, calling her corrupt, initiating an FBI investigation and years of litigation, arbitration losses and court appeals which Elicker continued before he was finally told unequivocally by the Supreme Court to pay her $300K and reinstate her - plus all the attorney fees for the city and Jefferson. Harp rushed to judgement because of a never disclosed agenda. Elicker had a political agenda supported by the NHPD Chief - which resulted a record making excessive settlement for Cox, a rush to prosecute, count stack and overcharge the defendants. Adjudication be damned, Officer Diaz who gave 15 unblemished years to the city one could argue is the least culpable of all the officers but still within the scope of persecution by city leaders to be destroyed. This is round one but in keeping with his Harp mentor, Elicker will appeal again and again and in doing so will waste taxpayer money until the Supreme Court shuts it down. Again.

Looks like to me the City went to this hearing without doing there due diligence. They were probably thinking this was going to be a slam dunk. He hasn't been convicted of any crimes (as of yet),and the bigger question that needs to be answered is what exactly was his shift commander doing while all of this was going down. He could have very essaly told him to stop and call an ambulance.

Ive never seen the police officers medical training (or lack thereof) addressed in any of the stories about this case. I think that was a significant factor. If a spinal cord injury was even suspected, it should have been treated immediately by trained medical providers right at the scene of the accident.

In all of the articles that the NHI has written about this I do not recall any mention of the speed of the police van was traveling and this is a very critical point and it seems strange that the speed has never been determined. Was the speed reckless or a careless oversight, reckless warrants discharge an oversight with out intentional harm warrants a suspension. I hope the appeal does a better job obtaining the facts and then a clearer decision can be made but if there is any cloudiness may the the court error on the side of caution.

Reality check:
While the NHPD dropped this and him due to an auto accident, literally, and there were many who may have been bad actors who knew this gentleman in station, and were reacting to his persona and his brandishing a gun at a family outing on the way in,
nevertheless we have been doing seatbelts for 50+ years in cars (thanks, Mr. Nader), less so in school busses, and obviously not in police transports. But it's not this driver guy's fault to screech at a stoplight in the Have. We all have, due to mindless, lunatic, video game driving. If you earned a right in the back of a NHPD transport, again, you earned that. You get what you did, getting forced into a van in front of your family, which most of us probably avoid.
If you pull a gun at a family picnic, you get to deal with consequences, Randy, Ben Crump notwithstanding. This is America, more than New Haven. We just have more Democratically-dominated towns cow-towing to this tripe for whatever reasons.
I am sympathetic to the painful loss for the victim/plainly-guilty dumbass who ended up in a police transport after brandishing a gun with his family, all and them knowing his rep, but we all put ourselves out there, huh?
I don't know that we blame some cop who did his job, under the circumstances.
Mr. Cox would gladly trade for a mulligan, I'm sure, as would we all, except Attorney Crump, et al., whom I respect for striking quickly.
Checks have likely been cashed, so we'll never know.
We don't get back one man's quality of life, nor any others', without realizing the basis for this transaction.
Bless them all.

Seems like a sound arbitration decision to me. Seatbelts do save lives, so why didnt this police transport van have seatbelts for handcuffed prisoners? And it seemed Segui was the officer who oversaw the tormenting. Here we go again with the city throwing taxpayer dollars at endless costly legal tussles to try to enforce its political will. And as One City Dump says why didnt Elicker stop fighting Harps dead-end legal vendetta against Jefferson when he came in?

Unfortunately the public hasn't been able to see the whole picture of this incident. Just a few seconds or minutes of the hours long ordeal. Don't you think it's funny that they mention a near accident, but don't give you ALL of the info about it? Leaving you to question Officer Diaz's work ethics and whether he is responsible for injuring the man (which in my opinion he was not) he stopped short to avoid a collision and Cox took it upon himself to not hold the straps provided and to stand up in the back of the transport vehicle being a nuisance while the Officer was driving. He finally decided to sit down shortly before Officer Diaz had to stop short, again, to avoid a vehicle coming from the corner that was going at a fast rate of speed.

Cox wouldn't have been in the back of the transport vehicle, but for the fact that he decided to break the law and illegally carry and brandish a handgun in an attempt to intimidate residents of the street who were just trying to get home.

Officer Diaz did notify the supervisor after he saw the state that Cox was in and called for an ambulance. He also notified them when he arrived at the PD and advised that he not be moved until the paramedics got there.

Officer Diaz definitely did not deserve to lose his job.

This was all completely avoidable had the City and BOA done an operational audit of the NHPD years ago, as many of us had suggested. A ~$300K investment looks very cheap next to a $45M settlement. Problem is that Elicker thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and the failed Unite Here Board of Alders is too busy threatening to shut down the City if they don't get what they want from Yale Corp.

Elicker and the BOA are responsible for the van not having seatbelts. And Elicker and the BOA are responsible for the NHPD not carrying NARCAN.

Instead of admitting to the City that NH had purchased a converyance van without an adequate Supplemental Restraint System, and placing that vehicle into service, Elicker and Jacobson then took the disingenuous action of pointing fingers, solely blaming Officers.

Then, in the effort to pacify the left, they gave the wink and nod, then illegally fired Officers.

Well, I hope the last tax raise was enough because I can already hear Elicker talking about the next "generous" settlement.

This time, it will come with more grumbling because he's not using the money to buy votes and support.

A snake has a stronger backbone than the "leadership" in this City.

The City of New Haven is penny wise and dollar foolish. An external audit of emergency systems should be conducted to make sure ALL equipment from the police department and fire department are up to standard.

All vehicles, SRS, computers, radios, radio frequencies, etc., should all be examined to ensure they can functiom properly in the face of an emergency. The City is NH are not in-line with OSHA standards if they're operating vehicles without SRS systems.

The outcome of that audit should then be FOI-ed so the public can see the City's safety failures.

Can you imagine a serious emergency situation i.e, catastrophic weather event, active shooter, plane accident, or gang war? Can first responders even function?