NextDoor photos of car that got hit.
(Updated with further comments from Alder Sal DeCola) One evening in late February, Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola crashed his car into a neighbor’s parked vehicle on Hervey Street — and then drove away.
Now, less than a week before DeCola faces a political challenger in the Democratic primary, the incident has resurfaced on social media and police are investigating a new anonymous Internal Affairs complaint alleging that the alder received favorable treatment from neighborhood cops at the time.
New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson and East Shore District Manager Lt. Brian McDermott confirmed that DeCola, an alder representing Morris Cove’s Ward 18, crashed into a parked car in late February and drove away.
DeCola eventually spoke with police and provided insurance information. He was not arrested and there is no known police report associated with the incident.
A person who identified herself as Julie Ferrucci posted about the incident on Feb. 26 on the social media platform NextDoor shortly after it occurred.
“My jeep got hit and the person took off on Hervey street by a grey/silver Subaru. They hit my car so hard that it got pushed on the sidewalk and has a decent amount of damage,” Ferrucci wrote alongside images of the car’s damaged rear end and debris from the crash. She asked neighbors for help locating the perpetrator.
DeCola told the Independent this week that he crashed the car due to a “medical condition.” He added, “I called lieutenant and I made restitution for all damages.”
When asked why he fled the scene of the crash, DeCola responded, “I said, I had a medical condition.”
McDermott confirmed this story: “Alder DeCola failed to stop at the scene. However, he proactively reached out to me after the fact to come forward … within hours” of the crash, he said.
Update: At around noon on Saturday, DeCola provided the Independent with the following additional comment for this story: “In 2021, I was diagnosed with multiple myelodysplastic syndromes, which is a family of blood cancers that affect bone marrow. This is condition that I will have for the rest of my life. I have resisted making my cancer diagnosis public because I want to focus on the issues affecting Ward 18 and the city. Even while battling cancer, I have maintained a near perfect attendance record at the Board of Alders and committee meetings, while also volunteering at St. Bernadette’s church preparing meals for elderly; I simply want to continue serving my community. This is the medical condition that I referenced in the New Haven Independent article regarding the car accident. Unfortunately, with only five days until an election, someone has pushed a story, and I must address this character assassination. I’m making this condition public for residents to understand the context of the accident, but my priority is fighting for Ward 18 and our city.”
Sal DeCola at a ward committee meeting this summer.
Ferrucci and a neighbor offered a different account of how DeCola was identified as the crash’s perpetrator.
Ferrucci stated on NextDoor she was not aware of DeCola’s involvement in the incident until March 2, an account supported by public statements on NextDoor and screenshots of contemporaneous private messages. (Ferrucci declined to be interviewed for this story.)
A neighbor of DeCola (who asked to remain unnamed in this article) said that within days of the crash, he saw the alder’s car parked in such a way that it was boxed in and hidden by other cars. That sight, combined with a rumor, caused the neighbor to send Ferrucci a private message on March 2 indicating that he had relevant information.
Ferrucci subsequently commented beneath her original post that she had discovered the identity of the person had crashed into the car, without naming DeCola.
In a series of publicly posted comments, Ferrucci wrote that the perpetrator wasn’t arrested “because he has connections with the city of New Haven and they wanted me to press charges and I felt bad but I did get their insurance.”
She wrote soon afterwards, “due to who this person is I couldn’t even get a police report written by New Haven police so I don’t think the charges would go anywhere.”
The late February post resurfaced this week when local Republican Party Chair John Carlson reshared it on NextDoor.
When some responded to Carlson’s post suggesting that the allegations were false, Ferrucci mentioned DeCola by name and wrote that police had convinced her not to press charges.
She wrote: “The police should have pressed charges. They asked me to agree not to press charges if if they could convince Sal to give his insurance information. … I didn’t press charges because I don’t feel comfortable with the whole situation and after all that went down the charges would have went no where. I was never even given a police report.”
Internal Affairs Investigates
According to Police Chief Jacobson, someone anonymously filed an Internal Affairs (IA) complaint last week alleging that police gave DeCola special treatment due to his position as an alder.
Asked if he or other Republican Party leaders filed the complaint, Carlson replied, “it wasn’t us.”
Due to the complaint, Jacobson and McDermott said they could not go into detail about the case.
“The New Haven Police Department is going to conduct a thorough investigation on this,” said McDermott. “We didn’t extend Sal DeCola any special courtesies. We handled it the same way.”
Jacobson said though fleeing the scene of a crash is indeed a crime, police do not always arrest people for doing so. He said that police typically don’t press charges if the victim of a car crash chooses not to, noting, “Car accidents are a civil matter when the people want them to be.”
When asked if there was a police report associated with the crash, Jacobson said, “not to my knowledge.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s typical,” he said of the lack of a report, “but it does happen.”
....so now driving and crashing into a car and leaving the scene is civil???? since when?!
It is time for a change in the Cove. DeCola uses his position to cover up a crime and he must go.... Lt McDermott is compromised and must go. The police pressured a woman not to press charges??? The chief says they don't always arrest people for fleeing the scene of an accident??? Jacobson is political tool and should removed.
I guess that kid who fled the police stop in Hartford and killed a Hartford policeman should not be charged then either--- as the chief in NH sez- "...though fleeing the scene of a crash is indeed a crime, police do not always arrest people for doing so. "