The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Data: Charges in police-related deaths rare in Connecticut
Prosecutions of police officers in Connecticut are rare. In fact, they happen so infrequently there’s little data to show whether any prosecutions would lead to a conviction.
In light of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, Connecticut officials are considering changing the laws that govern the use of deadly force to encourage more accountability.
Since 2001, there have been 76 investigations into deadly use-of-force or deaths while in police custody in Connecticut, according to the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office. It’s resulted in just one arrest — Officer Robert Lawlor was acquitted of manslaughter and assault charges in connection with the 2005 shooting death of an 18year-old in Hartford.
The statistics are being driven by a state law that advocates for greater police accountability say needs to change. The law, based on U.S. Supreme Court prece
dent, defines the parameters of when an officer is justified in using deadly force. A state’s attorney is only required to consider the few seconds before the officer shoots — which critics of the law say is too late — when determining whether the shooting is justified.
“We need to think about how the law is constructed and whether we need to make a change,” said state Sen. Gary Winfield, cochairman of the state’s Judiciary Committee who is crafting a list of police accountability reforms he’s hoping to get passed during a special legislative session.
But according to attorney Elliot Spector, a former Hartford police officer who trains law enforcement on a variety of policies and policing issues, Connecticut for the most part is getting it right.
Spector, who is developing a course in reducing alleged misconduct and increasing accountability, contends that since so few officers in Connecticut have used deadly force, it’s proof there isn’t much of a problem here.
During every class, Spector asks the officers to raise their hand if they have shot someone. Out of roughly 30 to 45 officers in any given class, only one hand goes up, he said. When asked how many have refrained from shooting someone, about 60 percent of the class will raise their hand.
“There are many more times they could have used deadly force and they didn’t,” Spector said.
But advocates for greater police accountability say one shooting is too many and state law and police culture need to change. Winfield said there is no doubt the legislature will examine some type of police reform bill during a special session that will likely be scheduled in the coming weeks.
Spector said when advocates talk about wrongful deaths at the hands of police, they are usually referring to incidents that happened years ago such as the 2014 deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
No charges were filed against Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer who put the 43-year-old Garner in a chokehold, after arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes. Video showed Pantaleo holding Garner down as he gasped, “I can’t breathe,” with his final breaths.
There was equal outrage, though no video, when prosecutors declined to ask a grand jury to charge Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who fatally shot Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man.
By contrast, the events caught on video in Minneapolis on May 25 — when a police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, as two other officers held the man down and a third stood nearby — led swiftly to charges of murder and manslaughter against Derek Chauvin and charges of aiding and abetting against the other three, while igniting global and statewide protests against police misconduct.
In the 15 years before Floyd’s death, 110 officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter for on-duty fatal shootings, according to records compiled by Philip Stinson, a law professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Just five have been convicted of murder, while 37 have been found guilty of lesser crimes. Of the 42 victims, 25 were black.
Use of force in Connecticut
In 1999, Scott Smith was the first Connecticut police officer charged with murder for an on-duty incident. The New Milford police officer was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of 27-year-old Franklyn Reid, who was black. However, the conviction was overturned and Smith eventually pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and avoided prison.
In recent years, there have been several highprofile use-of-force cases in Connecticut that have not led to prosecutions, including the death of Anthony Vega Cruz in Wethersfield in April 2019.
Vega Cruz was shot by Wethersfield police officer Layau Eulizier during what started as a traffic stop over a potential misdemeanor license plate ticket. The 18-year-old Vega Cruz attempted to avoid the stop several times, driving recklessly, according to the investigation into his death.
Eulizier was out of his cruiser when he fired two shots as he was standing directly in front of the teen’s car, hitting Vega Cruz once in the head.
An investigation conducted by Hartford State’s Attorney Gail Hardy determined Eulizier was justified in his use of deadly force. Eulizier resigned from the department last month, and Spector will likely represent him in any civil proceedings.
The deadly shooting occurred just six days before Hamden police officer Devin Eaton shot and wounded a woman who was a passenger in a car that had reportedly been involved in an attempted robbery in New Haven.
A store clerk called police to report that Paul Witherspoon was potentially armed with a gun and had tried to commit a robbery, according to a report of the investigation.
Police later determined Witherspoon had exchanged words with a newspaper delivery person, but no robbery had occurred and no gun was found in his vehicle, the report said.
As Witherspoon moved to get out of his car, Eaton opened fire, wounding the female passenger. The woman survived. Witherspoon was not arrested. Eaton was charged with first-degree assault and reckless endangerment. His case is still pending. He was the first Connecticut police officer charged in a use-offorce investigation involving a shooting in more than a decade.
The shootings of Witherspoon and Vega Cruz sparked protests and calls for an independent investigation process as have the deaths of Murbarak Soulemane, 19, and 15-year-old Jayson Negron.
Soulemane was fatally shot in January while he was sitting in a car surrounded by officers in West Haven. Police said Soulemane carjacked the vehicle in Norwalk and led authorities on a high-speed chase up Interstate 95.
Body camera video of the shooting shows the officer fired at Soulemane, who had a knife, through a closed car window. His death was the third fatal police shooting in Connecticut that month. All three cases are under investigation.
Negron’s death in 2017 is still drawing protests. The Bridgeport officer who fatally shot Negron as he was trying to stop the teen from fleeing in a car was cleared of any wrongdoing. Bridgeport police have refused to release the report of the internal affairs investigation, which would have examined whether the officer violated department policies during the incident.
Even if officers are charged, legal analysts said, getting a conviction is difficult because the officers will likely be judged by a group of civilians far different from those who have taken to the streets in protest.
Many jurors are “quite sympathetic to police officers because they’re reluctant to second-guess decisions made by somebody in a high-stress job, facing often significant danger,” said David Sklansky, a Stanford law professor, former federal prosecutor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
Spector contends most people appreciate the role police play in society and don’t want extensive changes. But he agreed that even one “bad” police-involved shooting is too many.
“This is not a numbers game.” Spector said. “There has been no successful prosecution of police officers and that’s good. We don’t want one single bad shooting and that hasn’t happened.”