Melinda Tuhus Photo
Garzon addresses a crowd outside police HQ.
When Alvaro Garzon filed an official complaint accusing Officer Dennis O’Connell of choking and tasing him while he was handcuffed, it prompted the ninth internal affairs investigation of the officer in six years.
Garzon’s hands shook Thursday as he filed his complaint with a police department internal affairs officer. His eyes teared up. The refugee from war-torn Colombia was remembering other police and military officers he’d run into — and how they wanted him dead.
Garzon filed his complaint Thursday and participated in a rally outside the police station against police brutality. Garzon’s is the latest in a growing litany of citizen accusations against O’Connell, who has been repeatedly accused of physically abusing people.
NHPD
Officer O’Connell.
Officer O’Connell’s personnel file offers another side to that story. The file indicates O’Connell was reprimanded and suspended after his involvement in multiple motor vehicle accidents, due to reckless driving.
He has also claimed that he suffered physical injury while arresting suspects. He filed at least a dozen workers compensation claims over the past decade. The substance of those claims are not public information.
A review of internal affairs files on O’Connell reveals that his department superiors have found him at fault only once, and even then did not punish him. (That tally does not account for two case files that were unavailable.)
Garzon filed his complaint Thursday afternoon in conjunction with the rally outside 1 Union Ave. It was the latest instance of a growing local concern over how New Haven’s officials are dealing, or not dealing, with allegations over police misconduct. Also, aldermen have asked for more information about the department’s use of tasers.
Read previous stories here and here.
O’Connell could not be reached and police union boss Louis Cavaliere did not return calls seeking comment.
Alvaro Garzon fled his native Colombia, escaping death threats because of his human rights work. He came to the U.S. as a refugee. He was terrified of the police. He filed the complaint with support from 15 activists — including two others with complaints outstanding against the same officer — after reading a previous Independent/ La Voz Hispana story and contacting protest organizers. Garzon’s three children attended the protest with their father.
Garzon said O’Connell, responding to a minor domestic disturbance at his home on Eastern Street, arrested him, tased him several times, then kneed him in the neck, cutting off his breathing.
“We do look to see if there’s a problem with a particular officer, and try to intervene,” said Capt. Denise Blanchard (pictured), head of internal affairs, when asked what the procedure is when these complaints are filed. Protest organizer (and fellow Colombian) John Jairo Lugo chimed in, “In this case, it’s the same police officer.”
“People file complaints with internal affairs,” said another protest leader, Jewu Richardson, “and they get letters in the mail a couple of months later saying, ‘Due to extensive investigation of this complaint, we didn’t find any wrongdoing by officers,’ and the case is closed.” In the case of two others who filed complaints three years ago against O’Connell, Richardson said they never heard anything.
“Does it normally take two to three years for people to hear from their complaints when they file with internal affairs?” Richardson asked Blanchard.
“I would say, normally, not,” Blanchard responded, adding that she’s been in charge for only a year, and noting that every case — even multiple charges against the same officer — is investigated individually. “However, what I can do is try to find that information for you and promptly get back to you. So you will hear from me either later today or tomorrow, and I can let you know exactly what I have.”
Richardson expressed his displeasure with the police investigating themselves. He said the community has no faith in the credibility of the internal affairs division or the police department in general.
As for Garzon’s complaint, Blanchard said he would hear something within seven days.
Garzon goes to court Jan. 24, to defend himself against charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest resulting from his run-in with O’Connell. He said his public defender is urging him to plead guilty and accept probation. He doesn’t want to do that. “I am not guilty,” he said.
The Record: Exoneration
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Internal Affairs’ files on cases against O’Connell.
Protesters at Thursday’s rally say the police department has dismissed or ignored the repeated complaints about O’Connell’s alleged misconduct.
An examination of internal affairs files on O’Connell revealed what official action has been taken. The Independent reviewed those files on Friday in response to a request under the Connecticut Freedom Of Information Act. A cover sheet from Captain Denise Blanchard, head of IA, states that O’Connell is involved in eight IA cases, plus Garzon’s, filed on Thursday. Files on only the most recent six cases were provided.
Of those cases, O’Connell was found at to have violated orders and regulations only once. In that case, then Acting Police Chief Stephanie Redding decided that there was “no just cause for disciplinary action.”
That ruling was in the case of a man named Dramese Fair, who accused O’Connell and two other officers of performing a strip search on him and then sexually assaulting him on June 6, 2007. According to a report prepared by Sgt. Craig Guglielmo, Fair said that police arrested him without cause, maced him, and kicked him, and that Officer O’Connell dragged him down a flight of concrete steps and headbutted him. Back at the police station, O’Connell pulled down Fair’s pants and underwear and “puts his finger in my anal,” according to Fair.
According to Sgt. Guglielmo’s report, another officer backed up Fair’s claim that he was dragged down the stairs.
“Naw, he wasn’t dragged,” O’Connell said, according to Guglielmo’s report. “No. He was still resisting, but I had his legs.”
O’Connell stated that Fair was verbally abusive and physically dangerous, resisting arrest, and had kicked him in the chest. During his pat-down, he felt what seemed to be drugs, O’Connell told Guglielmo. Hence the strip search. “At no time did I spread his buttocks or insert a finger in his anus. Never. No. No,” O’Connell told Guglielmo.
Guglielmo found that O’Connell had violated eight General Orders, training bulletins, and departmental rules, all of which were related to the improper execution of a strip search. He was not found to have violated any rules regarding physical abuse.
NHPD
Jonathan Avila on Feb. 17, 2008.
That’s true also of the other files involving O’Connell. He was accused of abusing a man named Jonathan Avila on Feb. 16 2008. Avila told police that O’Connell took off his badge and entered his apartment, where he headbutted him, maced him, threw him into a glass shelf. O’Connell said Avila had threatened to kill him and someone had tried to take his gun, forcing him to punch Avila. O’Connell was exonerated.
Another man said O’Connell punched him in the face, maced him, choked him, threw him against a police car, and kicked him on April 30, 2007. O’Connell told the IA investigator that the man “just went crazy” when he tried to pat him down. The man tried to gouge his eyes out and tried to grab his gun, forcing him to punch him and mace him according to O’Connell. He was exonerated.
Abel Sanchez accused O’Connell of brutally beating him on Jan. 6, 2008. O’Connell told IA that Sanchez had been yelling and swinging his arms and refusing arrest. He was exonerated.
A woman accused O’Connell of verbally abusing and falsely arresting her on Jan. 1, 2008. She told police she was injured while being handcuffed. O’Connell told IA that the woman was uncooperative and refused to be arrested as part of a dispute involving an XBox 360 video game console. He was exonerated.
Two other investigations against O’Connell were closed because of a lack due to a lack of substantiation or a failure for the complainant to follow-up.
Dangers Of The Job
In addition to filing multiple workmen complaints, O’Connell has been in numerous car accidents.
O’Connell was officially reprimanded and then suspended for one day after being in six “at-fault” accidents between June 2001 and the end of 2005.
The last of these was Dec. 26, 2005. O’Connell was in pursuit of a stolen black Lexus and “failed to properly negotiate the stopping distance between his vehicle and the perpetrators we was pursuing on Ferry and Saltonstall,” according to a report by Capt. Stephen Verrelli. O’Connel had to swerve, hitting two poles, smashing up his cruiser, and injuring himself and another officer.
It would be interesting to see the number of complaints regarding Officer O'Connell vs. other officers. It would seem that if his numbers are outside the norm then there is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.