Cox Lawyers Press U.S. Attorney For Federal Probe

Richard ​“Randy” Cox’s lawyers and family delivered a request Friday directly to Connecticut’s U.S. attorney: that her office launch its own investigation into whether New Haven cops violated the constitutional rights of the hospitalized 36-year-old New Havener.

Cox’s lawyers, family members, and local civil rights activists detailed that plan Friday morning during a press conference on the front steps of the state courthouse at 121 Elm St.

Nationally prominent civil-rights attorney Ben Crump — standing alongside Cox’s mom Doreen Coleman and sisters Latoya Boomer and Laquavius LeGrant; local attorneys Jack O’Donnell, R.J. Weber, Lou Rubano, and Michael Jefferson; and state NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile — held the press conference before proceeding to meet with U.S. Attorney Vanessa Avery and other representatives from the federal Department of Justice to talk about Cox’s case.

Cox, meanwhile, remains hospitalized and paralyzed after suffering a severe in-custody injury to his neck and spine after city police arrested him on June 19. Five police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave, and the state police are still conducting a criminal investigation into the officers’ conduct. The department has also upgraded its policies and department-wide training on ​“active bystandership” and deescalation in hopes of avoiding a similar future incident.

Crump said that the team’s goals for the meeting with Avery are twofold: to petition the U.S. attorney’s office to conduct a ​“rigorous civil rights investigation” into how city police officers handled Cox the night of his arrest, and to make the case that those same officers violated Cox’s constitutional rights. 

“We will express to the U.S. attorney and to the civil rights division of the Department of Justice that we believe that these actions are textbook acts of deliberate indifference,” Crump said on Friday. 

“They violated his rights under the 4th Amendment, the 8th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment,” he added. ​“They had deliberate indifference to his medical care.” 

Crump singled out the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. ​“Ask yourself: Was it cruel and unusual punishment to put him in the back of that police transportation van, handcuffed, with no seatbelts, knowing that if you’re speeding, if you slam on the brakes, that somebody is going to be seriously injured?” he said.

He noted that just Thursday former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for violating George Floyd’s constitutional rights.

After the meeting, Avery had no comment on how it went, beyond a statement issued on Tuesday about the case. (Click here to read that statement, in which she said that her office is open to potentially investigating the case. The state police, meanwhile, are still conducting their own investigation, while Cox’s family and attorneys are still preparing their own civil lawsuit against the city.)

Also during Friday’s press conference, Cox’s family members and lawyers responded to the city police department’s recent enactment of a new set of policy reforms designed to protect the health and safety of arrestees. They also spoke about just how dire Cox’s physical condition remains these nearly three weeks after his in-custody injury.

“We’re all for the new policies,” Boomer said about the recently adopted changes to police protocol for transporting prisoners. ​“But why do you need a policy that says that when someone needs help, give them help? That should never have to be a policy. That should be in your own brain.”

Attorney R.J. Weber agreed. ​“There shouldn’t be a real need for a written policy to attend to someone who’s in your care and custody in a humane way,” he said. ​“That should be inherent in someone’s heart, inherent in someone’s character, to take care of somebody who’s truly injured.”

As for Cox’s current medical condition, Weber and O’Donnell and Crump said that Cox is still hospitalized. ​“He can’t speak. He can mouth words, sometimes a little air can pass through and you can hear a grunt or groan,” Weber said. ​“He did have the tubes removed from his mouth. He now has the tracheostomy in his throat. He hasn’t had much progression physically other than those changes.”

“He’s really trying to tell us what’s going on, but he can’t,” Cox’s mom, Coleman, said. ​“So we’re just trying to help him out. … I want the people to know that he’s my son, and we have to pray for him.”

At a press conference of his own afterwards, Mayor Justin Elicker thanks the U.S. attorney for recognizing strides the city has made to address the issue. He expressed a willingness to work cooperatively with law-enforcement partners. He also said he agrees with the family that policies are only a starting point for broader change.

Click on the videos below to watch Friday morning’s press conference in full, as well as Mayor Elicker’s responses during a media availability he held at City Hall Friday afternoon.