By The Vanguard Staff
NEW HAVEN, CT – Taxpayers here will foot the $45 million settlement – lawyers said it is the largest ever paid in a cop misconduct case of this kind – paid to a man, paralyzed after being transported handcuffed and without a seat belt in the back of a police van following his arrest last year, attorneys said this past weekend, according to news reports, including the Associated Press.
The deal was cut after days of negotiation, and the after the “city fired two police officers who authorities said treated Randy Cox recklessly and without compassion,” wrote AP.
“The city’s mistakes have been well documented,” according to a statement by attorneys Ben Crump, Louis Rubano and R.J. Weber, who represented Cox, noting, “But today is a moment to look to the future, so New Haven residents can have confidence in their city and their police department.”
The statement added Cox, 36, was “left paralyzed from the chest down June 19, 2022, when the police van he was riding in braked hard, sending him head-first into a metal partition while his hands were cuffed behind his back. Cox had been arrested on charges of threatening a woman with a gun, which were later dismissed,”
Police video caught Cox begging, “I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” after the crash.
But at the police station, said the AP, “officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox by his feet out of the van and placed him in a holding cell prior to his eventual transfer to a hospital.”
“Five officers, including those who were fired, face criminal charges in the case. All have pleaded not guilty,” the AP account added, and Cox sued officers and the city for $100 million – and the settlement, said his lawyers, is the “largest ever in a police misconduct case.”
The NAACP, comparing the Cox case to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore, said it was “outraged.” Cox is Black, while all five officers who were arrested are Black or Hispanic. Gray, who also was Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a city police van,” wrote AP.
New Haven police have since adopted reforms that include making sure all prisoners wear seat belts. The state Senate on June 5 gave final approval to legislation that would require seat belts for all prisoners being transported.
“Randy entered a police transport vehicle being able to walk, and now he’s not able to walk,” Mayor Justin Elicker said at a news conference last Saturday, adding, “(W)hile this settlement cannot bring Randy back to his original state when he entered that police transport vehicle, that my hope is that it provides Randy the future medical support and other support that he will need.”
