Thomas Breen file photo
Lt. Brian McDermott.
A city police investigation found that Morris Cove’s former top cop did not provide special treatment for the neighborhood’s alder.
According to Police Chief Karl Jacobson, the alder in question eventually received a misdemeanor ticket for leaving the scene of a car crash.
The New Haven Police Department’s (NHPD) Internal Affairs division finalized a report this month about the police response to a car crash on Feb. 26, 2023, in which Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola crashed into a constituent’s parked car on Hervey Street and then drove away.
DeCola has said that he was experiencing a medical incident at the time.
The stated owner of the car, Julie Ferrucci, did not press charges at the time. About six months later, as DeCola faced a competitive election, word of the crash resurfaced on social media, soon making the news.
Around that time, Ferrucci filed a lawsuit against DeCola and the police department, as well as an Internal Affairs complaint against the officers involved. She accused Lt. Brian McDermott, the district manager at the time, as well as Officer Mark Salvati of offering DeCola preferential treatment in the way they responded to the crash.
The lawsuit claimed that Ferrucci was told by police not to press charges against DeCola due to his political position. (Ferrucci ultimately withdrew the claims against McDermott and Salvati, while the lawsuit against DeCola remains active.)
The newly released Internal Affairs report was written by Sgt. Rosa Melendez on Dec. 11, 2024. The Independent obtained it via a Freedom of Information Act request.
The report concluded that Salvati was not aware that DeCola had been the driver at the time of the crash. Drawing from interviews and department-issued cell records, the investigation also found that McDermott was not immediately aware of DeCola’s involvement in the crash either, concluding that DeCola confessed his role in the crash to McDermott in a phone call several days later.
Initially, McDermott said he believed that the crash had taken place the night before that phone call. He said he later found out the crash had happened a few days prior. McDermott’s work cell phone records indicate that he and DeCola spoke on the phone twice on March 2, the first confirmed phone call between them since the date of the crash on Feb. 26.
According to the report, McDermott provided Ferrucci with DeCola’s insurance information after speaking with the alder. No report was written or charges were pressed, which Internal Affairs concluded to be in keeping with typical practice.
“Officers are able to use their judgment,” explained Jacobson in an interview on Friday.
Jacobson said that since no injuries occurred, and since Lt. McDermott believed at the time that DeCola had come forward hours after the crash occurred, the lieutenant was justified in believing that the exchange of insurance information was enough to resolve the incident.
Jacobson noted that body camera footage depicts Officer Salvati confirming with Ferrucci that it was all right with the family that no report would be made.
About a year after the crash, once an internal investigation had been initiated, Jacobson requested that an incident report be compiled and that the alder be cited for leaving the scene of a crash.