The Federal Bureau
of Investigation and the New Haven Police Department's Internal Affairs unit
are conducting two separate investigations into police conduct during an arrest
in the Temple Plaza courtyard on June 2.
Both
investigations center on the actions of NHPD Sgt. Chris Rubino, who allegedly
beat a handcuffed 24-year-old man who had been fighting with officers, arrested
a woman who had recorded the incident on her cell phone and ordered another
officer to snatch the phone from the woman's bra, the New Haven Independent reported.
The NHPD
investigation will look at whether Rubino's conduct violated General Order 311,
which protects the rights of citizens to photograph or video-record police
activity in public. That policy took effect last March following several
controversial incidents, including the botched raid of the Morse-Stiles Screw
at Elevate Lounge in October 2010.
Jennifer Gondola,
an Ansonia, Conn., resident who filmed the incident on her cell phone, told the
Independent she put her phone in her bra after Rubino demanded she hand it
over. When she did not comply with his command, Rubino handcuffed her
"really tight" and ordered another officer to pat her down and remove
the phone, Gondola said, adding that Rubino pocketed the phone.
Described as
"dark and chaotic," the phone's video was posted online by the Independent Tuesday
evening. The video captures Rubino's arrest of the suspect and his demands to
Gondola to turn over the phone. Gondola's attorney, Diane Polan, said Wednesday
that the video contradicts Rubino's written police report of the incident in
one key way: the sequence of events including when Gondola invoked her right to
record.
Gondola and her
friend, Tamara Harris, who witnessed the incident, took their story to the
Independent, which published an initial story on the NHPD probe the following Monday.
The story included a photograph of Rubino with
his foot on a handcuffed suspect's head.
That photograph
prompted an FBI investigation into the arrest, the Independent reported. A
source close to the investigation told the Independent that the FBI is more
interested in whether "the arrest of the guy who is on the ground" in
the photograph violated civil rights law, than in Rubino's conduct toward
Gondola.
“Although the
investigations are independent of one another, the two agencies are
cooperating,” according to a NHPD press release on Wednesday.
For his part,
Rubino told the Independent he had "done nothing wrong" and that he
confiscated Gondola's phone because she captured evidence of the illegal
actions of the man he was arresting.
Both
investigations are still ongoing.