Transcription
Things are just getting fired up here on Dixwell Avenue outside the Stetson Library. The organization, the handing out of t-shirts for the big march that's going to happen in about an hour to the New Haven Police Department in protest of what happened to Cox. Now, of course, that happened almost three weeks ago.
As Sarah just mentioned a couple of moments ago, earlier today at a press conference, the Cox family and their legal team said they want the investigation expanded. [Music] This man can't eat, he can't sleep, he can't talk, he can't breathe, he can't do anything at all but cry. With Randy Cox's family feeling frustrated, their attorneys met with Vanessa Roberts Avery, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut today, demanding federal civil rights charges be brought against the five New Haven officers now on leave. They violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and the 14th Amendment. And attorney Ben Crump claims there was deliberate indifference to Cox's medical condition based on the fact that he could be heard saying on body camera footage multiple times that he couldn't move and that he felt his neck was broken. The Eighth Amendment talks about it is prohibited to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on a pre-trial detainee or post-arrest detainee.
Cox's family and attorneys are pleased that the New Haven Police Department policies pertaining to prisoner transport have been revised, but you shouldn't need a written policy for that. That should be inherent in someone's heart, inherent in someone's character to take care of somebody who's clearly injured. It's about the people that we recruit to work in our police department. It is about the culture that we foster within the police department. It is about holding those officers that don't align with those values accountable.
Now, these are the shirts that are being handed out to those who are going to take part in the march that's going to step off from the Stetson Library, scheduled to be about five o'clock, about a two-mile march south-southeast of here to the New Haven Police Department, where Mayor Justin Elicker and Chief Carl Jacobson say they will join the crowd and they will be happy to speak if asked to do so. We're live here in New Haven. Justice for Randy Cox is what they're looking for. I'm Tony Terzi, Fox 61 News.