Fired cop should get job back, panel rules
NEW HAVEN — A state Department of Labor arbitration panel has reversed the termination of former New Haven Police Officer Oscar Diaz who was fired for his role in the incident that paralyzed Richard “Randy” Cox, who has received a $45 million settlement from the city.
Two members of the three-member panel voted Friday to give Diaz his job back with a 15-day unpaid suspension and back pay since his termination last June.
“Officer Diaz, like all New Haven police officers, is entitled to due process pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreement,” said Florencio Cotto, president of the New Haven Police Union, Elm City Local. “In this case, the arbitration panel did not agree with the termination, and we are very pleased with the decision. We understand that the city is planning to challenge the ruling and we are prepared to fight back and welcome Officer Diaz back to the New Haven Police Department.”
In a statement issued Monday, New Haven officials said they will file an appeal of the ruling in court.
“We are incredibly disappointed and strongly disagree with the ruling by the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration to overturn the decision by the Board of Police Commissioners to terminate Officer Diaz for his actions related to the incident involving Randy Cox and for his violations of the General Orders of the New Haven Police Department,” Mayor Justin Elicker and Police Chief Karl Jacobson said in a joint statement. “We strongly believe the decision to terminate Officer Diaz was the right one, and the city will challenge the ruling by submitting a motion to vacate to the Connecticut Superior Court.”
New Haven city officials contend that Diaz will not be reinstated since they plan to appeal, he has a criminal case pending and has been submitted to the state’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council for decertification as a police officer.
Diaz was among five officers criminally charged with injuring Cox who ended up permanently paralyzed after being arrested at a Juneteenth party in June 2022. Diaz was driving a transport van with Cox unrestrained other than handcuffs in the back when he slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a car, an arrest warrant said.
One officer retired before he could be punished and the city’s police commission voted last year to terminate the other four officers. The police union challenged Diaz’s termination through the state Department of Labor. The union also filed a grievance of the termination of the three other officers who were fired, according to city officials. Those cases have not concluded as yet.
Two of the three members of the panel voted to reverse Diaz’s termination, the arbitration document said. The two members concluded based on two hearings that Diaz “did not commit” all of the violations listed in an internal affairs report that led to his firing.
“The city did not have just cause,” the panel said in the document.
Asi milar panel ruled in late November that fired New Haven Police Sgt. Shayna Kendall, accused of lying about a traffic stop, must be given her job back with any back pay since she was terminated in 2022. New Haven officials have appealed that ruling in court, according to a spokesperson for Elicker.
A three-member labor panel also reversed the termination of two former Shelton officers, Michael McClain and Lt. David Moore, who were accused of mishandling a 2020 domestic violence call that involved a Bridgeport police officer. Shelton officials appealed Moore’s case. A third officer also disciplined in the case cam eto an agreement with the city and has returned to work.
Cox’s injury occurred when Diaz hit the brakes, which flung the man forward, causing him to slam his head on the front wall of the van, the warrant said. Cox told Diaz he couldn’t move and he thought he had broken his neck, body camera video shows. Diaz pulled over and called for an ambulance, but proceeded to the police station where other officers contended Cox was drunk and pulled him out of the van by his feet, according to documents and body camera footage.
More than an hour later, doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital determined Cox had broken his neck and was paralyzed from the chest down.
Officer Ronald Pressley who was involved with Cox at the police station, retired before he could face discipline in connection with the incident. Diaz, officers Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera and Sgt. Betsy Segui were suspended with pay shortly after Cox’s accident. All five were charged by state police with cruelty to persons and second-degree reckless endangerment. Those cases are pending and all five officers are scheduled to appear Thursday in state Superior Court in New Haven.
Lavandier, Segui and Rivera, who were also terminated, all have pending appeals with the arbitration board, city officials said.
According to the Diaz ruling, two members of the board concluded that it was never proven that his actions in the transport van led to Cox’s serious injury and that he tried to help the incapacitated man.
After asking the ambulance to meet him at the station, Diaz went directly there, which took about three or four minutes, the panel said in the ruling. It wasn’t Diaz’s fault that the ambulance didn’t arrive at the station for another 25 minutes, the panel said.
When he arrived, Diaz told the officers that he wouldn’t advise moving Cox without professional medical help, the ruling said.
“If he really fell, I would not even move him,” Diaz is believed to have said, according to the ruling. “I wouldn’t even move him until the ambulance get’s here, just in case.”
City officials claimed in a brief filed to the panel supporting his termination that Diaz’s actions led to Cox’s life-altering injury.
But the panel disagreed, according to the ruling. “The majority of the panel finds that (Diaz) did not engage in gross inaction and poor judgement that resulted in the permanent disability of a civilian,” the ruling said. “There was no evidence presented that this was true.”