Re: 6/15/00 - Numero Dos; A second police investigation raises new questions about the honesty of New Haven's detectives.
Numero Dos
A second police investigation raises new questions about the honesty of New Haven's detectives.
By Colleen Van Tassell
Published 06/15/00
Another witness statement rises from obscurity to bite a New Haven police detective on the ass.
This time it's Detective Edwin Rodriguez. This time the statement wasn't "forgotten" in a drawer. It was part of a pretrial cross-examination, marked and put into evidence.
Rodriguez got caught apparently steering a crime witness/victim by whispering "numero dos"--the number of a suspect's mug shot. Rodriguez got caught appearing to distort a witness' statement in translating it from Spanish to English. Rodriguez got caught--on tape. He got caught in court by a defense attorney who pointed out glaring contradictions between the witness' actual words on tape and the witness statement Rodriguez wrote.
A Spanish-speaking witness told the detective that it was too dark to make a positive ID. But that statement is not found in Rodriguez's English translation. On tape, the witness said he thought that mug shot number two, the one Rodriguez whispered to him, was "more or less" the picture of the person who robbed him. Rodriguez's translation says the victim "immediately identified" mug shot number two.
The statement was taken by Rodriguez and fellow Detective Stephen Coppola. These same two detectives took the now-infamous statement in a separate case that has the city abuzz and a grand jury looking into wrongdoing in New Haven's P.D. That statement, from a murder eyewitness, ended up locked in a supervisor's drawer while a suspected murder roamed free. (See "Eyewitness to Murder," Advocate, June 8; "The Missing Captain," Advocate, June 1.)
But because this other taped interview concerned a robbery, not a murder, it drew little attention. Hardly anyone heard the facts of this investigation, and the case went away. Quietly.
Until now.
The Advocate has obtained a copy of the taped interview, along with court transcripts and documents that call into question Rodriguez's police tactics.
Rodriguez could not be reached for comment.
On Feb. 8, 1998, Rodriguez, then an eight-year police veteran, and his partner escorted a 59-year-old Spanish-speaking armed robbery victim up to the police department's third-floor "game room" to tape his statement. The door was closed. Only the three men were present. Coppola doesn't speak Spanish. The victim understood very little English.
The victim was there to recount how two men had robbed him in front of his house on Blatchley Avenue the night before. Based on the victim's description, one man was arrested that night carrying the victim's wallet and I.D. The second suspect was still at large.
The victim was in the game room to help the cops nab the second man by looking at mug shots. He was shown eight color photographs (called a photo board) of possible suspects. Rodriguez asked the victim questions in Spanish and translated the victim's answers into English while the tape rolled.
Chances were slim of the victim identifying mug shots. According to the incident report from the night of the robbery, written by an officer dispatched to the crime scene, the victim couldn't identify the second man. "Subject #2 was an unclear description," the report reads.
But with a little coaxing and creative Spanish-to-English translations by Rodriguez, the victim suddenly identified the second robber. The interview lasted only 17 minutes. It was typed up, reviewed and signed by Rodriguez and stored in the police property room.
The information contained in Rodriguez's translation of the interview led to the prosecution of Angel Garcia a year later. It also brought out serious allegations by the public defenders' office of police misconduct.
On Jan. 26, 1999, Detective Rodriguez was subpoenaed to appear in court for an evidentiary hearing in the state's case against Garcia. Garcia's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Brian Carlow, asked Rodriguez if he knew Angel Garcia.
"I knew him from the streets; I didn't know him personally. Detective Coppola, my partner, has [had] run-ins with him in the past," Rodriguez testified, according to a court transcript.
"Did he [Garcia] know who you were?" asked Carlow.
"He knew of me. Everyone knows of me in Fair Haven," replied Rodriguez.
During the ensuing testimony, the written witness statement, supposedly based on the taped interview, proved to contain inaccuracies and mistranslations.
Carlow hammered away about the interview with the victim and about how Rodriguez got the victim to positively identify Garcia's mug shot.
Rodriguez testified that the first time police showed the victim eight color photographs of potential suspects was during the taping. And not before.
Because "that would be improper."
Rodriguez then testified that the victim positively identified Garcia's photo without hesitation. Rodriguez also made the same claim in drafting his application for Garcia's arrest warrant.
Carlow asked if the victim had difficulty seeing his robbers because it was dark out. Rodriguez testified no, the victim never said that.
The Advocate enlisted a Spanish-speaking employee to review the tape. According to her, the victim in fact told Rodriguez that he had trouble seeing and positively identifying the second robber due to darkness.
By the time the cross-examination was over, Rodriguez backpedaled. He said the victim picked out a mug shot prior to the taping, something he earlier testified would have been "improper." He also admitted he whispered to the witness.
Carlow asked Rodriguez whether his report stated that the victim didn't see the second robber very well.
"No sir," Rodriguez testified.
"And you didn't put that on the either?" Carlow asked.
"No sir."
"And you didn't even include that in your arrest warrant that you submitted to a judge to sign to arrest him?" Carlow asked.
"No sir."
"You left that out?" Carlow asked.
"I didn't--it was not in the statement. It should have been in the statement," Rodriguez testified.
It should have been in the statement. Rodriguez said this at least two more times during cross-examination.
Then came the whispering.
According to the court transcript, after first denying that he heard whispering on the tape, then denying he whispered altogether, Rodriguez finally admitted that he whispered. But he had his reasons.
(Hear for yourself. Go to <www.newhavenadvocate.com> and hear Rodriguez whisper "numero dos.")
"Why would you whisper?" Carlow asked.
"I wasn't whispering. You heard me on the tape. I wasn't whispering." Later in the transcript he changed his story. "[I was whispering] because he couldn't see the numbers, that's why."
Critical to this testimony is that Rodriguez first claimed, several times, that he didn't show the victim the photo board before taping the interview at 6:40 p.m.
However, photo number two was dated and signed by the victim at 6:35 p.m.
Prosecutor Gary Nicholson asked Rodriguez about the time discrepancy.
"He was shown the photographs before we put on the taped statement," Rodriguez testified. "He was having problems with the numbers, at which time I told him, number two, is that correct? He said, yes, number two."
Why did Rodriguez change his story?
Rodriguez testified that he had misunderstood Carlow's question.
A day after this testimony, Angel Garcia, photo number two, pleaded guilty to robbery charges. It remains a mystery whether Garcia got a fair shake.
Because remember, it should have been in the report.
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