Hundreds March For ​“Justice For Randy”

Dixwell and downtown streets filled with cries for justice Friday afternoon as marchers sought to turn the tragedy of a New Havener paralyzed by police into a spur for structural change in how law enforcement deals with Black citizens.

The state and local NAACP organized the march along with Richard ​“Randy” Cox’s family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

The crowd gathered outside the Stetson branch library on Dixwell Avenue before the march.

“We will change policies, we will change the behavior of the police department, not only in New Haven, but around the world!” Pastor John Lewis declared in an opening prayer before the assembled. ​“Let this be the beginning of change!”

Then the group marched through Dixwell and downtown streets to the police station, filling the air with call-and-response chants.

” No justice …”

” … no peace!”

“No racist …”

“… police!”

“If I say: I think my neck is broke …”

” … don’t take that as a joke!”

“Black lives matter!”

“Randy Cox’s life matters!”

March leaders included state NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile and civil-rights attorney Michael Jefferson, a member of the legal team. 

Tamika Mallory, a co-founder of the National Women’s March and of a social justice group called Until Freedom, addressed the crowd at a pause in the march on Broadway. She tied Cox’s case to those of Breonna Taylor and Freddie Gray (“who died from the exact same rough ride”) among others victimized by police officers.

“We are dying all over this nation. Don’t let anybody tell you it is isolated. It is coordinated,” Mallory said. ​“Only we are responsible for fighting the power!”

It was the latest development in the unfolding Cox case, which began on June 19, when police arrested the 36-year-old New Havener on weapons charges without incident at a Lilac Street block party. En route to the police station, the driver of a prisoner conveyance van slammed on the brakes; Cox crashed his head against a wall of the van and injured his neck and spine. Rather than wait for a medical crew to attend to Cox’s crumpled and paralyzed body, officers at the police lock-up accused Cox of lying, demanded he stand up, pulled him out of the van, placed him in a wheelchair, then dragged him across the floor into a cell. 

Cox remains in the hospital, unable to move or talk, as his case has sparked nationwide outrage. The department has placed five officers on administrative leave while the state police investigate their actions in the incident. The department has also upgraded its policies and department-wide training on ​“active bystandership” and deescalation in hopes of avoiding a similar future incident. Cox’s legal team met with Connecticut’s U.S. attorney Friday to request a federal probe.

The mayor and the police chief attended Friday’s march to ​“listen” and ​“engage with participants and the family.”

The marchers took Broadway to Elm Street, made a right onto State Street, and walked down to Union Avenue to the police station, arriving just before 6:30 p.m.

At that point, several speakers — including Attorneys Crump and Jefferson, Mallory, and members of Cox’s family — addressed the crowd.

Crump told the crowd that Cox was ​“watching live right now” from his hospital bed. He invited them to help lift his spirits by chanting, ​“Justice for Randy Cox!”

Which they did with gusto.

“We will never stop fighting for you,” Crump told Cox, via the crowd.

Crump read from a text message sent by a pastor at the hospital with Cox at the time. He said that Cox was ​“nodding and crying, and wants to say, ​‘Thank you to everybody for the love and the support.’ ”

Mallory spoke again, and issued a double caution to the crowd: Don’t give in to calls for remaining ​“peaceful.” And don’t give in to temptations to act out in ways that will work against the movement.

“We are nonviolent. But we are not peaceful,” she said. ​“We are not calm. We are outraged. We are angry. We will raise hell as long as we need to. But we will be nonviolent, so the world can see the thugs have badges, and they’re inside of buildings like this one!”

New Haven civil-rights attorney Michael Jefferson told the crowd that the Cox case reflects how, for Black people, ​“we are policed differently” and ​“our lives are devalued.”

“The dominant culture does not care about the general welfare of Black people in this country,” Jefferson said, as he contrasted the 90 bullets that Akron, Ohio police officers fired as they killed a Black man named Jayland Walker with the arrest in Eastern Kentucky of a white man who had just shot to death three police officers. Jefferson accused the country of sending billions of dollars to support ​“Nazis in the Ukraine” while spending ​“no money stopping the Nazis in this country, in law enforcement.” He accused the New Haven police department of keeping ​“Nazis and white supremacists on the force.” And he criticized the mayor for being backed primarily by a small number of majority-white wards in the city, and for nominating and supporting a now-retired former acting police chief who defended the ​“Thin Blue Line” movement.

Cox’s brother Jerry ​“Jeff” Brown traveled from Florida to be with his family and attend the rally. He fired up the crowd with a critique of the city announcing new policies in response to what happened to his brother. 

Instead, he argued, the city needs to focus on holding cops responsible for misconduct.

“We don’t want no more rules. We don’t want no more procedures. What we want is some goddamned accountability!” he declared. (Click here to read about one case of an officer cleared of wrongdoing in a controversial incident after which he was promoted; and here to read about how the supervisor in charge of Randy Cox’s mishandling in the lock-up was disciplined after two years prior for misconduct on the night that a prisoner committed suicide at the detention center.)

Cox’s sister Latoya Boomer agreed. ​“Getting [the officers involved] fired and arrested is my agenda,” she told the crowd. ​“We definitely want them gone. That’s my goal.”

The rally ended at around 7 p.m. A fleet of school buses sent by the city came by to ferry protesters from the police headquarters back to where the march had started outside Stetson Library.

Why They Marched

Brother and sister Cortez Legrant, 17, and Jaelin Roberts, 21, joined the march in support of Randy Cox, who is Legrant’s uncle. 

Roberts said she has grown up seeing Cox all over New Haven. She described him as reserved, quiet, passionate about the people he loves, honest, and respectable. 

When she heard Cox was hospitalized as a result of being in police custody, she said, she was in disbelief. 

“I’ve heard about so many incidents about so many things that just aren’t right, but to know that it’s happened to someone I cared about, it was hurtful,” she said. 

Before the kick-off to the march, Legrant and Roberts sat beside each other outside the Stetson Library with a sign reading, ​“I can’t move. Justice for Randy.” 

Roberts said she hopes the march and community support will serve as a wake-up call.

“I would like to see justice for him and other people who may have gone unnoticed or unheard,” she said. 

Legrant’s relationship with his uncle throughout his life has been rooted in their common love for football. 

Legrant currently plays football at Sun Prairie East High School in Wisconsin. He described his uncle as his biggest supporter for his football career. Cox could often be found attending Legrant’s games, or the two would go to local games together. 

When Cox was injured, Legrant was getting ready for a football game and received the call from his mother. 

“I didn’t know it would happen to someone I know,” he said. 

Legrant visited his uncle at the hospital on July 4. He said Cox couldn’t do anything but cry. ​“It was really tough seeing him,” he recalled. 

Because Cox can’t speak, Legrant spent his visit talking to his uncle about football. 

Legrant said he hopes that his uncle heals quickly and that the incident will result in all police departments having better arrest and transportation procedures to prevent similar cases in the future.

Dixwell residents Doreen Hutchinson and Louise Pierce (pictured above) turned out for Friday’s march in matching T‑shirts that others wore as well. The shirts featured a black-and-white image of Randy Cox beneath the words, ​“Help I Can’t Move!”

Hutchinson, who teaches kindergarten at Wexler Grant school, said she knows Cox’s family well from her work in the public school system. ​“A real nice person,” she said about Cox.

How did watching the police video of Cox’s injury and mistreatment make her feel?

“That could have been my son. That could have been anybody,” she said. ​“Something has to change.”

Pierce said she was upstairs at the Q House’s new senior center earlier in the day when she found out about the march.

Why did she come down and decide to join in?

“To support the family,” she said. ​“To see what kind of change” will come from this. ​“They’re getting away with murder,” she said about the too-many times she has watched and read and heard about officers seriously injuring Black suspects.

She said she watched the police body cam video from Cox’s case once and only once. She couldn’t bring herself to watch it again.

“I think change is gonna come this time,” she said. Because this time, ​“it’s on TV.”

Mimi (pictured above; she declined to give her last name), an emergency room worker, traveled from her home in Waterbury to attend Friday’s march. 

“I’m almost embarrassed to say we are Americans” when thinking about how the police handled Randy Cox, she said.

“No one deserves to be treated this way. There’s no way these cops should get away with it. There has to be justice.”

Another local public school teacher, Dee Marshall (pictured at right above), said she turned out to Friday’s march to help educate her students and all young people in this city on the importance of ​“medical Miranda” rights, and on getting an officer’s badge number if a police officer mistreats them.

“I can’t watch the whole thing,” she said when asked about the police body cam video showing Cox’s injury and mishandling by cops. ​“I’ve taught so many of these kids.”