BY Melinda Tuhus & Thomas MacMillan | JAN 7, 2011 3:02 PM
When Alvaro Garzon filed an official complaint accusing Officer Dennis O’Connell of choking and tasing him while he was handcuffed, it prompted the ninth internal affairs investigation of the officer in six years.
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Garzon filed his complaint Thursday and participated in a rally outside the police station against police brutality. Garzon’s is the latest in a growing litany of citizen accusations against O’Connell, who has been repeatedly accused of physically abusing people.
Officer O’Connell’s personnel file offers another side to that story. It lists the many times that he has claimed that he suffered physical injury while arresting suspects. He filed at least a dozen workers compensation claims over the past decade.
The personnel file also indicates O’Connell was reprimanded and suspended after his involvement in multiple motor vehicle accidents, due to reckless driving.
A review of internal affairs files on O’Connell reveals that his department superiors have found him at fault only once, and even then did not punish him. (That tally does not account for two case files that were unavailable.)
via Cop Accused Of Brutality — A 9th Time | New Haven Independent.
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