The towns of Darien, Easton, Monroe, Trumbull and Wilton will pay Ronald Terebesi $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from a fatal 2008 police raid in Easton.
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The U.S. Supreme Court previously denied an appeal by the five Connecticut police departments. The high court’s action meant a federal lawsuit by Terebesi, formerly of Dogwood Drive in Easton, could go forward against the Easton, Monroe, Trumbull, Darien, and Wilton police departments, the named police defendants in the case, and the municipalities of Easton and Monroe.
“Mr. Terebesi is satisfied,” according to Gary Mastronardi, Ronald Terebesi’s lawyer, a former member of the FBI. “Money is always important; what he feels is equally significant and quite impressive is that in order to get us to accept it they had to agree to allow judgments to enter against each and every one of the defendants, both the municipalities and the individual defendants, for multiple violation of his constitutional rights.”
Category: Connecticut
Declare the Pennies on Your Eyes
Last night I attended a public forum on taxes hosted by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy. The forum panelists consisted of Institute experts and local Republicans and was moderated by Joe Scarborough, who ran the proceedings much like his radio show, which is to say he mostly talked over his guests in his excitement to hear his own voice. The event was a commercial for the Republican party (we were told that Democrat invitees declined) but nonetheless they made their point: Republicans in Connecticut are a toothless minority and our economic tailspin will continue as long as control of the state budget remains in the hands of our one-party junta.
Consider:
- Based on wages, taxes, cost of living, unemployment, and workplace illnesses and injuries, Connecticut is among the top ten worst places to live and work in the US (MoneyRates.com).
- In 2014, Connecticut was ranked the worst state for job creation (Gallup).
- Though declining, Connecticut’s unemployment rate remains above the national average (CT News Junkie).
- Connecticut has the fifth highest gas taxes in the country (Tax-Rates.org).
- Connecticut was tied with New Jersey for having the latest Tax Freedom Day in 2015 (Tax Foundation).
- Although US population is growing overall, the population in Connecticut is declining; in 2013–2014, CT was one of just six states to lose people (US Census Bureau).
- Forty-nine percent of Nutmeggers would move out of the state if they could (Gallup).
Now, just weeks after passing the second-largest tax increase in state history, General Electric is considering moving their headquarters from Connecticut to Georgia. Governor Malloy is reportedly negotiating a package with GE to keep them here, but as my state senator Tony Hwang said last night, this kind of piecemeal approach — special tax breaks and corporate welfare for big boys, nothing for others — is not only patently unfair, it’s also a bald admission that broad tax increases damage our economy. GE pays an estimated $3.5 million $1.8 million in local property taxes annually, and the vacuum created by their departure will suck the loose change from the pockets of everyone living in my town. In their fervor to blast their favorite bogeymen, the Democrats aim their drones at the Taliban corporations but instead the bombs and missiles, as usual, fall on us luckless citizens sitting in our mud huts.
Kelo @ 10
A few years ago, George Mason law professor Ilya Somin asked me if he could use photos I had taken in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, the disputed site in the infamous Kelo v. City of New London legal battle, for a book he was writing on the decision. Of course I said yes. His book, The Grasping Hand: “Kelo v. City of New London” and the Limits of Eminent Domain, is out now.
Has it been a decade already? In a series of posts for the WaPo to promote the book, Ilya has been analyzing the decision — he believes it runs counter to both originalist and living-document interpretations of the Constitution — while reminding us of the details in danger of fading from common recollection. One thing that particularly irritated me at the time was Pfizer’s hand-washing press releases claiming they had nothing to do with the condemnations. Don’t you believe it:
The NLDC produced a development plan that would revitalize Fort Trumbull by building housing, office space, and other facilities that would support a new headquarters that Pfizer, Inc. – a major pharmaceutical firm – had agreed to build nearby. The development plan produced by the NLDC was in large part based on Pfizer’s requirements, which NLDC leaders (some of whom had close ties to Pfizer) were eager to meet. Pfizer would not be the new owner of the redeveloped land, but did expect to benefit from it. I believe that NLDC leaders genuinely thought the plan would serve the public interest, as did the city and state officials who supported it. But it is also true, as one of those who worked on the plan put it, that Pfizer was the “10,000 pound gorilla” behind the project.
Pfizer’s fecklessness was revealed when it left New London as soon as a ten-year tax break expired which the city had used to lure the company there in the first place. It was the shiny red cherry on top of the kleptocrat sundae spilled into our laps by our elected soda jerks.
In his book Ilya also discusses the ramifications of Kelo, which he believes will eventually be overturned. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
Space Invaders
Our little castle finds itself under siege once again:
Alliaria petiolata is an aggressive invader of wooded areas throughout the eastern and middle United States. A high shade tolerance allows this plant to invade high quality, mature woodlands, where it can form dense stands. These stands not only shade out native understory flora but also produce allelopathic compounds that inhibit seed germination of other species. Alliaria petiolata is native to Europe and was first introduced during the 1800s for medicinal and culinary purposes.
Though a member of the mustard family, when crushed or rubbed the leaves of A. petiolata generate a garlic scent — hence its more common name, garlic mustard. Apparently its leaves make a tasty pesto, a recipe I’m willing to try since I have so much of it growing on the edge of our woods.
I’m skeptical of the whole concept of invasive species; what some may see as imperialism by the exotic, I see as natural selection. A species using what it’s got to get what it wants is the engine of evolution. The first mudskipper who crawled onto land was an invader; so too are the first seeds to germinate in the black sands of a new volcanic island. Concern about invasive species here in the U.S. is less about conservationism and more about restoring it to an imagined pre-Columbian ideal. We know that American Indians altered the environment to suit them, drastically changing the Western Hemisphere as they found it, and yet we fantasize about furbishing the land to how it appeared in 1491.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If we buy an old house, we may admire aspects or details from an older period (like, say, the original hardwood floors) and strip away modern additions that obscure them (wall-to-wall carpeting). But we’re conscious of making those choices and acknowledging those preferences. When we label a species as invasive, we intend it pejoratively. We mean that we simply don’t like them. The Earth is a garden, a place where we discriminate between species: we water the elephants and weed the smallpox. What’s so wrong with admitting that to ourselves?
For a few short hours in this lifetime, our acre is my garden — and I don’t like garlic mustard. The stuff spreads like a brush fire and seems headed straight for our lawn; thus I’ve started the four-to-five year process of eliminating it from our yard. It’s notable that some studies showed that outbreaks of garlic mustard didn’t damage species diversity, so the stuff is hardly kudzu. But it’s easily recognizable with its serrated heart-shaped leaves and white cruciform flowers and pulls easily, especially after a rainstorm. I think Connecticut has already lost the battle — or at least is in the process of evolving — because I see it everywhere I go, and who’s going to yank it from public land or along the roadsides and in the abandoned lots? No one. But I mutter a prayer to Saint Jude and pull it anyway.
SCOTUS to Cops: Time to Face the Music
On Monday, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal (pdf) filed by police officers who participated in the 2008 raid on the Easton, Connecticut home of Ronald Terebesi, Jr.
If you recall, the SWERT tactical team composed of officers from six neighboring towns raided Terebesi’s house in response to a tip from an exotic dancer who said two men were smoking crack cocaine in Terebesi’s living room. The raid — which involved all the usual hallmarks: flashbangs, battering down the front door, setting the house on fire — ended with cops shooting and killing Terebesi’s unarmed friend Gonzalo Guizan. Paraphernalia and less than a tenth of an ounce of a suspicious substance was recovered from the house. Terebesi completed a brief drug program and was never charged with any crimes.
Both Terebesi and Guizan’s estate filed civil suits against five of the towns (Westport being the outlier) and the individual officers involved. The Guizan family settled with the towns for $3.5 million. In Terebesi’s case, the cops argued that their acting in their official capacities as town employees granted them qualified immunity and requested summary judgment. Both the District Court and the US Court of the Appeals for the Second District disagreed, and now SCOTUS has tacitly done so too.
The case is headed to trial in New Haven and currently assigned to Judge Janet Bond Arterton, the same District Court judge who wrote the scathing decision denying the officers’ qualified immunity in the first place:
[Monroe police sergeant Jay] Torreso maintains that he is entitled to qualified immunity because his personal conduct was objectively reasonable. However, Torreso is alleged to have been personally involved in what is plausibly described as an objectively unreasonable raid, given the minimal threat posed, the extreme force used, and the circumstances surrounding his no-knock entry. … Therefore, he has not shown that he is entitled to qualified immunity at this stage.
Arterton, who has a reputation for dropping the hammer, has presided over a number of high-profile cases; she recently sentenced former governor John Rowland to 30 months for campaign fraud and conspiracy. And I’m sure the judge will turn a fond eye upon the testimony of William Ruscoe, one of the SWERT cops named in the suit, who’s currently serving time for raping a teenager.
Terebesi’s lawyer, Gary Mastronardi, believes the case will go to court this year. “Because of the age of the case, the judge will be riding roughshod over the lawyers to move this quickly,” he said.
As for his client’s chances, Mastronardi said, “Both rulings in the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court were expected. Evidence is the evidence and they can’t make the evidence disappear.”