What? 5 New Haven Cops Are Charged with Misdemeanors after Randy Cox Was Paralyzed in a Police Van
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Five cops in New Haven, Conn., are facing charges in connection with an incident that left a Black man paralyzed after he was detained in the back of a police van.
Randy Cox, 36, lost use of his lower extremities after he was picked up on a weapons beef by members of the New Haven Police Department. What happened next is tragically similar to the events that led to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015. Cox was being taken in to a police station, handcuffed in the rear of a police van without any restraints to keep him safe in the event of an accident or sudden stop. The latter occurred, when, according to CBS News, the cop driving the transport van slammed on his brakes to avoid a crash, sending Cox flying head first into a wall of the van.
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It got worse from there.
From CBS News:
As Cox pleaded for help, saying he couldn’t move, some of the officers mocked him and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries. Then, the officers dragged him by his feet from the van and placed him in a holding cell prior to his eventual transfer to a hospital.
Cox survived his injuries, which is more than be said for Gray, who succumbed after members of the scandal-ridden Baltimore Police Department similarly transported him in the back of a police van while handcuffed but unrestrained. Gray later died, leading to days of protests and unrest in some Baltimore neighborhoods. Six officers were charged in connection with his death but none were convicted; one was recently given a promotion within the department, which I’m sure makes Charm City residents feel a whole lot safer.
In New Haven, five cops—Officers Oscar Diaz, Ronald Pressley, Jocelyn Lavandier, Luis Rivera and Sergeant Betsy Segui—are all charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and cruelty to persons. The charges are all misdemeanors, which sounds like a helluva lot less than Cox would’ve been charged with if he and a group of friends tossed a cop into a moving vehicle and the cop came out with severe and permanent spinal injuries.
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