Family plans lawsuit after Black man is paralyzed in back of New Haven police van

After a Black man was paralyzed in a “rough ride” in the back of a police van in New Haven, Conn., his family is preparing a lawsuit.

Randy Cox, 36, was put in the back of a transport van on June 19 without a seat belt. During the ride, the officer driving the van slammed on the brakes for an abrupt stop. The stop sent Cox flying into a wall headfirst.

Cox’s family and their attorneys held a press conference Tuesday in which they said Cox was paralyzed from the chest down.

New Haven police claimed that the driver, officer Oscar Diaz, had to stop short to avoid an accident. Scot Esdaile, leader of the NAACP in Connecticut, wasn’t buying it.

“People from the community have been coming to us for years talking about how they torture people in the back of paddy wagons,” Esdaile said. “They put people in the back of the paddy wagon; they go real fast and then they slam the brakes.”

Randy Cox, whose legal first name is Richard, is seen in police body-cam video.

Cox called for help, and officers eventually agreed to call an ambulance. However, they didn’t believe Cox was actually injured, repeatedly telling him to “sit up” and “stop playing around,” according to body-cam video.

The cops dragged Cox out of the van, dragged him into a wheelchair, then dragged him out of the wheelchair and left him on the floor of a holding cell. He had been initially arrested on a gun charge. Paramedics eventually arrived at the police station and took Cox to a nearby hospital.

“Where’s the first aid training? Where’s the on the job training? Where’s the accountability?” Cox’s sister Latoya Boomer asked at Tuesday’s press conference. “I want to know, where’s the person who sees what’s going on and says, ‘Maybe he’s not joking. Maybe he’s not drunk. Maybe he is in distress.”

New Haven police officers lift Randy Cox into a wheelchair at the police station.

Five New Haven police officers, including Diaz, have been placed on paid leave. Connecticut state police are investigating the incident.

Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who was hired by Cox’s family, was one of several people who compared Cox’s injury to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015. Gray died from a broken neck suffered while riding in the back of a police van, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. However, all the cops in the case walked.

“This is Freddie Gray’s case on video,” Crump said Tuesday, according to Vice. “Thank God we have the video so they can’t deny what happened. They can’t deny that they had a man handcuffed and put him in the back of this paddy wagon inappropriately.”

With News Wire Services