EAST HAVEN, Conn. -- Constitutional rights took a back seat to officers' quest to solve a misdemeanor purse theft, experts on the issue of policing and the Fourth Amendment concluded after reviewing an internal affairs report.
And in a Police Department that has had issues of the like previously: "Old habits die hard," said John DeCarlo an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former Branford Police Chief.
An internal affairs investigation alleges five officers participated in misconduct the night of Jan. 17, and some of their actions were deemed unconstitutional, and in violation of many department policies and procedures.
Police officers were investigating a case where a police officer's mother's purse was stolen out of a shopping cart, classified as a misdemeanor because no force was used by the suspect. Police went to the New Haven house where the car was registered.
The owner of the car, Jennifer Deming, wasn't forthcoming, police reported in the internal affairs report. They spoke to other people and were led to a parking lot in New Haven where they were told a second car, registered to the same woman was being driven. The area was out of their jurisdiction.
Det. Robert Ranfone made it known via a call to the Police Department he planned to stop the car in a motor vehicle stop, rather than speak to the driver first, the report states.
The reason being behind it, Ranfone said was to get "information."
"We have often done that before ... until people are truthful to the police we can hold things against them. That is not unusual," he told Deputy Chief John Mannion who was conducting the investigation, the report states.
"It's really difficult to make organizational change in a Police Department that is substantive and lasting, because you have an embedded culture in the department," DeCarlo said. "The most important thing for any police officer to do -- you can't break a law to enforce the law."
"... in your dealings with the public, whether they're criminal or victims are to observe constitutional rights. Those are what we live by, those rights are guaranteed and what the police officer's must live by," added DeCarlo.
Stopping a motor vehicle without a legitimate suspicion the driver was dangerous or involved in the criminal activity is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, says Stephen Gilles, a law professor at Quinnipiac University.
Based solely on the internal affairs report, Gilles said it does not appear police had such a reason to stop her.
"Police cannot just arbitrarily stop anybody they feel like stopping," he said.
After Dominique Cash's car was boxed in which led to an accident between the cruiser and her car, she was stopped, and her car was towed, the report states.
At some point in the evening Deming's license was taken from the car, constituting an illegal search and seizure, according to the report. Deming was the registered owner of the vehicle.
Gilles said it's even harder to have justification for searching the car.
Police also knew the car did not belong to Cash, instead it belonged to Deming.
"The basis ... according to the detective's own testimony, the basis for the seizure is Jennifer Deming is not cooperating with our investigation, therefore we're going to start seizing. That's not a constitutional reason for seizing someone's property. There's nothing in the report linking the car to the purse snatching," Gilles said.
Cash was placed in the back of the police cruiser and threatened with arrest if she didn't cooperate in taking them to a house where Deming might be, the internal affairs report states.
Ranfone said, according to the report: "You got two [expletive] minutes before I lock you up for interfering ... I ain't playing with you ... You better come up with the house, the floor and where she's at ... I ain't playing ... You follow me? Take these officers to where the house is, I'm warning you ... You are going to go for interfering ... What house? What floor? ... Bring these officers right to the front door or you are going to jail."
At one point the report says Cash was eating a salad and talking on her cell phone. That doesn't change the circumstances, Gilles said, and it's still considered false imprisonment.
"It was pretty obvious she wasn't going to be given a choice. The detective was telling her you're going to do this or all kinds of bad things are going to happen -- put aside the Constitution for a second, that's a pretty clear case ... or false imprisonment," he said.
Either way, several officers' sent to New Haven to investigate a misdemeanor that involved a pursuit and now allegations of severe misconduct send a clear message police acted in a way that was "over the top," DeCarlo said.
DeCarlo said it's hard to judge what occurred in this specific East Haven case after the fact, as you don't know the mind-set of officers as they were working to investigate a crime.
"Police officers, airline pilots, emergency room doctors are all people that deal with exigent circumstances. They're human beings so they react emotionally to things differently," he said.
Copyright 2013 - New Haven Register, Conn.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
