‘Jane Doe’ driver added as defendant in Randy Cox lawsuit
NEW HAVEN — A “Jane Doe” driver who was at the intersection where Randy Cox was seriously injured while being transported in a police van last year has been added as a defendant in his family’s $100 million federal lawsuit against the city and four police officers.
A judge has granted the request from New Haven Police Officer Oscar Diaz, who slammed on the brakes while driving the prisoner transport van when Cox was injured, to have the unknown driver added as a defendant.
The move, according to a lawyer for Cox’s family, is the latest attempt by the police officers to deflect some of the financial burden if they lose the lawsuit.
Diaz and four other New Haven police officers have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges and were suspended days after Cox was paralyzed when his head hit the wall of the van last June. Diaz said he needed to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the “Jane Doe” driver of an SUV that appeared to move forward as he was approaching the intersection of Mansfield and Division streets on June 19, according to court documents and video footage obtained from a nearby security camera.
Cox, who had been arrested at a New Haven block party, was handcuffed, but was otherwise unsecured in the back of the transport van, which did not have seat belts.
Ina motion filed in the civil case, Diaz’s attorney James Tallberg said his client would not have needed to slam on the brakes if the unknown female driver hadn’t gone a few feet past the stop sign.
“As a result of the negligence of the operator of the unidentified vehicle, officer Diaz was forced to abruptly apply the transport van’s brakes and sound the transport van’s horn, to avoid colliding with the unidentified vehicle,” Tallberg wrote in the court filing.
Tallberg did not immediately return a request for comment.
It is unclear if anyone is trying to identify and find the female driver. A federal court judge agreed last week to add the woman as an “apportionment defendant.”
“The police officers are trying to bring in someone else to take some or all of the responsibility,” said attorney Louis Rubano, a member of the legal team representing Cox in the lawsuit. “They are pointing
the finger at someone else to get the responsibility off of them.”
Rubano said the lawsuit will go to a jury trial in December 2024. In the meantime, Cox’s legal team has asked the officers for all body and dash camera footage and any policies that were in place at the time regarding suspects who ask for medical attention and guidelines on how they were supposed to be secured. New Haven has since revised its policies regarding how suspects are transported.
“We are confident that the officers violated multiple policies,” Rubano said.
More than eight months since the incident, Cox can only move his left arm ina limited manner and turn his head, but he is otherwise paralyzed from the chest down and needs constant medical care, Rubano said in February.
The five officers named in the lawsuit, including Sgt. Betsy Segui and officers
Diaz, Ronald Pressley, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera, were suspended and later charged with reckless endangerment and cruelty to persons in connection with the incident. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Cox’s family filed a lawsuit in September seeking $100 million from the officers and the city for his ongoing care.
The officers filed a motion in the lawsuit on Jan. 7, seeking to blame Cox’s injuries on EMS who responded to the police station, court documents said. The filing claimed the two emergency medical technicians from American Medical Response of Connecticut failed to stabilize Cox and properly assess his injuries.
Video from inside the transport vehicle shows Cox wedged awkwardly on the floor of the van after Diaz slammed on the
brakes. The video shows Cox calling for help and saying he thought his neck was broken. Diaz stopped the van a short while later, but didn’t wait for EMTs to arrive and continued to the police station where Cox was dragged out of the van by his feet as officers insisted he was drunk and uncooperative, body camera footage released by the city shows.
Arrest warrants charging the officers indicated they informed EMTs they believed Cox was drunk, but said he was capable of moving on his own. He later was diagnosed with a broken neck and paralysis when he was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital more than an hour after he was injured, court documents said.
Video obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media Group from the New Haven Police Department shows the corner of Mansfield and Division streets when the incident occurred.
The video, which is from a nearby business, appears to show an SUV stop before Diaz slammed on the brakes of the police van.
The video shows the SUV approaching the intersection from Mansfield Street and briefly stopping. No stop sign is visible in the footage. At that point, the police van cannot be seen in the video. The SUV moved forward a few feet before stopping again as the police van approached on Division Street, the footage shows.
Diaz slammed on the brakes at the intersection, claiming in police reports he was trying to avoid a collision with the other vehicle. Diaz was going 36 m ph — 11 more than the speed limit — when he hit the brakes, state police said in the arrest warrants for the officers.
The SUV did not proceed through the intersection until Diaz had already passed, the video shows.