Re: 6/4/00 - EDITORIAL; Cops negligent in murder case
EDITORIAL
Cops negligent in murder case
A New Haven Register editorial June 04, 2000
The intricate theories being spun about what went wrong in the New Haven police department are enough to make dizzy even the most dedicated observer.
Why did New Haven fail to pass on to North Haven police key information in the investigation of a 1996 murder?
Unable to get a satisfactory explanation, the state?s attorney requested a grand jury. A Superior Court judge, appointed to conduct the grand jury investigation, will have to sort through explanations that range from the personal and petty to simple negligence to drug conspiracies.
What is known for certain, however, is enough to raise deep concerns about what is going on at 1 Union Ave. headquarters.
The whistleblower who called attention to New Haven?s conduct has been put on paid leave after getting into heated arguments with two officers who in 1998 interviewed someone who claimed to be a witness to the murder of Philip S. Cusick. Police believe Cusick was killed in Fair Haven. His body was then dumped in North Haven.
Now, the head of the detective bureau, Capt. Brian Sullivan, and the bureau?s second in command in 1998, Sgt. Edward Kendall, also have been put on leave because of their contradictory recollections of the investigation. In announcing the removal of Sullivan and Kendall from duty, Chief Melvin H. Wearing said that the department?s separate internal investigation cast doubt on "the integrity and credibility" of the murder investigation.
The recording and transcript of the interview with the witness were given to Kendall. Kendall never turned them over to North Haven police, who are trying to solve Cusick?s murder.
The recording, which may have been stored in the property room, has been lost. The transcript sat in Kendall?s desk for two years until it was discovered this year when the state?s attorney?s office began an investigation.
Until recently, Kendall claimed he had been overwhelmed by work and forgot about the evidence. He now claims he withheld the report based on orders from Sullivan. Sullivan reportedly told investigators he and Wearing ordered a halt to the city?s investigation and that evidence be turned over to North Haven. Wearing denies ever ordering a halt to the probe.
If Kendall?s second version of the truth is to be believed, he and Sullivan intentionally withheld evidence in a murder investigation.
That?s not the end of New Haven?s fouling up the North Haven investigation.
New Haven immediately took down posters in Fair Haven placed by North Haven police and twice by Cusick?s relatives seeking information about the murder. The posters violated a city ordinance, a New Haven official explained.
Even if a grand jury finds nothing more sinister than bureaucratic stupidity at the heart of this affair, it is a reminder that an insular, self-protectiveness endures at the New Haven Police Department.
Only three years ago, $28,000 in cash and bonds disappeared in the property room.
Independent auditors recommended an inventory. Chief Melvin Wearing promised changes to prevent a recurrence.
Ten years before, another detective managed to "forget" some 100 cases, including rapes and robberies, crammed into his desk drawers.
The excuses are familiar. It is just the grand jury investigation that?s new.
¸New Haven Register 2000
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