Federal
Police Brutality Probe Leads To Wall In Shopping Mall
Meriden,
CT, USA
The
federal investigation into police brutality allegations against the son of the
Meriden police chief has led authorities to a wall in a security office in the
Westfield Meriden Square Mall.
Sources
told The Courant this part of the investigation stems from a July 2010 case in
which officer Evan Cossette arrested of 17-year-old Milan McGarrah on
shoplifting charges.
McGarrah
was caught by security officers at the Sears department store in the mall
stealing three pairs of bluejeans, according to a police report.
Cossette
was the first officer to respond to the security office, where McGarrah was
being held. In an interview with The Courant this week, McGarrah said that
Cossette entered the office and handcuffed him.
McGarrah
admitted that he started giving Cossette some verbal abuse at which point,
McGarrah said, Cossette slammed him against the wall.
"He
threw me against the wall while I was handcuffed and I hit my head,'' McGarrah
said. "I was saying stuff to him but nothing that merited getting my head
slammed into the wall."
McGarrah
said that he had no visible injuries from hitting the wall, although he was
dazed. He was eventually charged with shoplifting.
The
small security office at Sears contains a desk and three chairs wedged against
the wall opposite the desk. On Wednesday, the head of security declined to
comment on the case or on whether investigators had taken anything from the
office.
The
brown office wall did contain a noticeable white square - about three feet by
three feet- that had been replastered but not repainted. When asked about the
hole in the wall, the security director said he couldn't comment. Sources said
investigators removed a piece of the wall.
The
police report of McGarrah's arrest, filed by officer Donald Huston, who is
listed as the arresting officer paints a different story. The report states
that McGarrah was uncooperative, wouldn't sit down and constantly yelled that
he would kick "both officer's ass" if they took the handcuffs off.
The
police report said that McGarrah fought all the way into the police cruiser and
until he was booked at the station.
Ironically
Huston is one of the officers who wrote a letter to City Manager Lawrence
Kendzoir months later complaining about disparate treatment within the police
department and how Evan Cossette wasn't disciplined like other officers because
his father, Jeffry Cossette, is the police chief.
Federal
and state authorities convened a grand jury in April to investigate brutality
allegations against Evan Cossette after that letter was filed and the videotape
of an incident between Cossette and arrestee was released.
The
grand jury investigation originally focused on a May 2010 video of Evan
Cossette pushing a handcuffed inmate backward into a jail cell. The inmate, Pedro
Temich, hit his head on a cement bench and passed out on the floor bleeding.
Evan
Cossette is shown on the tape walking into the cell several times and moving
Temich around before taking his handcuffs off just before ambulance personnel
arrived. Evan Cossette was given a letter of reprimand in that case.
Two
more brutality claims were later made against him. One case involved Robert
Methvin, who Evan Cossette acknowledged kneeing in the face in October 2010
after police had been called to Methvin's home because of a loud argument.
Methvin
filed a brutality complaint with internal affairs but Sgt. Leonard Caponigro
found the allegations baseless after a six-minute interview with Evan Cossette
in which he told the chief's son not to worry because he was "just going
through the motions." Caponigro has since retired.
In
the third case, Evan Cossette used a Taser to subdue Joseph G. Bryans in the
parking lot of the Midstate Medical Center in January after Bryan had walked
out of the emergency room angry that he wasn't being treated quickly.
At
least two of those men, Bryan and Methvin, have appeared before the grand jury
investigation into the police department. McGarrah said he didn't file an
internal affairs complaint against Cossette because he just wanted the case to
go away.
McGarrah
said that he has not gone before the grand jury, but that he was interviewed a
few months ago by FBI agents. McGarrah said he received community service.
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal
hearings into the police problem in America.
Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a
permanent DOJ office on Police
Misconduct.