NHPD body cam video
Jose DeJesus, during the confrontation.
A 39-year-old Fair Havener has sued a New Haven cop for allegedly using excessive force when the officer punched him in the face during an arrest at Walmart two years ago.
Meanwhile, a separate police report reveals that the same officer punched someone else in the head at the same Walmart mere minutes earlier.
The federal civil lawsuit, filed on Jan. 13 of this year, centers on an altercation at the Walmart at 315 Foxon Blvd. on March 2, 2021.
That afternoon, New Haven Police Officer Rafael Ramirez was working extra duty at the store when a then-37-year-old Fair Haven resident named Jose DeJesus walked in to pick up his wife, who worked there as a cashier.
Over the course of their interaction, which started with Walmart employees telling DeJesus to leave the store because he wasn’t wearing a face mask, Ramirez ended up breaking DeJesus’ jaw by punching him in the head.
As a newly-obtained police report documents, Ramirez had punched another man in the head minutes before interacting with DeJesus.
The police department did not discipline Ramirez for either incident. He is still working as a New Haven police officer.
The lawsuit, filed by local attorneys Alex Taubes and Barry Silver on behalf of DeJesus, alleges that Ramirez committed excessive force, recklessness, assault, and negligence. It claims that Walmart itself was negligent in its handling of the incident, and asserts that New Haven’s police department is responsible for a culture of “deliberate indifference” regarding the use of force.
In addition to Ramirez, the suit aims to hold liable Ramirez’ fellow police officer working at Walmart that day, Joshua Armistead, as well as Christopher Fennessy and David Zannelli (who both worked at the time in the Internal Affairs department) and then-Police Chief Renee Dominguez.
The 2021 incident began as DeJesus walked into the store. Since he was not wearing a mandated face mask, Walmart employees prompted Ramirez to ask DeJesus to leave. DeJesus refused, and an argument ensued. (All the while, DeJesus visibly held a face mask in his hand.)
The precise exchange is hard to discern from cellphone video (available here) and body camera footage of the incident. The two individuals offered different accounts at the time of what happened. Both Ramirez and DeJesus agree that the argument escalated and the officer punched DeJesus in the face. According to the lawsuit, the punch broke DeJesus’ jaw.
At the time, Ramirez wrote in a report that during the altercation, DeJesus “got in a fighting stance, very close to me and stated, I’m going to fuck your face up, in Spanish, and began raising his arms with clenched fist.”
That prompted the punch, according to Ramirez, who wrote, “I immediately struck him in the face with a closed fist on the left side of his face.”
DeJesus, meanwhile, denied that he had threatened Ramirez. He told the Independent at the time, “He hit me hard. Right in my jaw, right in my face. My whole left side is numb. I can’t even eat. I’m in pain.”
Subsequently, according to Ramirez, “The strike caused DeJesus to fall on the ground. I immediately followed him to the ground and was able to secure him in my department issued handcuffs. I noticed DeJesus had a hard time breathing so I placed him in a side resting position. I then called for medical assistance.”
According to one of DeJesus’ attorneys, Alex Taubes, “His jaw was very seriously broken by this officer’s punch. … There’s been a long journey of recovery since then. We’re definitely going to be seeking compensation for the serious injuries that were inflicted.”
Attorney Alex Taubes: DeJesus' jaw is "never going to be the same from what happened."
Taubes said his team is not currently seeking a specific amount in compensation. He added that DeJesus’ jaw is “never going to be the same from what happened.” (Click here to read the full complaint.)
Both Ramirez and Walmart responded in court documents denying the allegations and arguing that DeJesus’ injuries occurred due to “the plaintiff’s own criminal conduct or negligence.”
Alan Dembiczak of the Wethersfield-based firm Howd and Ludorf, LLC, is representing the city. In a statement, Corporation Counsel Patricia King wrote about the case, “The City of New Haven is confident that we will prevail when all the facts are disclosed in court.”
"Systematic Failure"?
Thomas Breen photo
Police Chief Karl Jacobson: "We’ve done a lot more with de-escalation and trying to keep people safe, but there’s times when people become a threat and the officers have to protect themselves."
The lawsuit alleges that then-Chief Dominguez, two of Ramirez’ supervisors, and the city itself were responsible for a culture within the police department of ignoring and implicitly permitting police officers to use inappropriate force.
The city “enables use of excessive force through a systematic failure to hold officers accountable,” the federal complaint states, “including through deliberate indifference toward the use of excessive force in violation of constitutional rights in the internal affairs, discipline, and training of officers.”
Taubes elaborated in an interview that the police department “exonerated the officer without doing any real investigation. We believe this is part of the culture of the city of New Haven. There’s institutional protectionism in all but the most extreme cases” of police violence.
Click here and here for previous Independent articles about other New Haven police officers who have punched arrestees in the head.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson disagreed with this assessment of the New Haven police department’s culture and investigation into Ramirez’ actions.
“I think that’s an incorrect evaluation of the New Haven Police Department, especially in the more recent years,” he said. “We’ve done a lot more with de-escalation and trying to keep people safe, but there’s times when people become a threat and the officers have to protect themselves.”
In a written statement, he elaborated, “The New Haven Police Department Internal Affairs Division conducted a thorough investigation of this incident, including a review of additional video surveillance footage, and determined that Officer Ramirez was acting in self-defense and his actions and use of force were reasonable and proportionate to the verbal threat and aggressive physical behavior displayed by Mr. DeJesus who posed an imminent threat to Officer Ramirez’s safety.”
Jacobson wrote that after the head-punching incidents in question, the department changed the way it collaborates with Walmart. Under a new policy, retail employees at Walmart must initiate the first interactions with customers before police get involved. Police must also refrain from enforcing larceny and fraud related to a $50 value or less, and cannot be asked to go beyond the curb outside Walmart.
Ramirez’ lawyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Police Report: Ramirez Struck Another Man Too
Minutes before DeJesus walked into the store, Ramirez arrested another man accused of shoplifting 36 items. During that arrest, as Ramirez wrote in a police report on the shoplifting allegations, the man, who was in his early 40s at the time, resisted attempts to handcuff him — and Ramirez punched him in the head in order to get him to comply.
After informing the man that he was under arrest, Ramirez wrote in a summary of the interaction in 2021, “I told him multiple times to place his hands behind his back or I would be punching him in the face to get him to comply. After several commands and struggling to place him in my department issued handcuffs, I pushed him against a soda machine in the vestibule area in attempt to gain control of him. Simultaneously I struck him in the head with a closed fist and again ordered him to place his hands behind his back.”
Of the face punch, Ramirez wrote, “the strike was not effective” in getting the man to comply with the arrest. A “brief struggle” ensued, according to Ramirez, “While holding on to his left arm, I placed my right foot behind his feet and pulled him down in a controlled manner.”
While the man was on the ground, Ramirez wrote, “I placed my right knee on his left inner thigh in attempt to get pain compliance. Said move worked and got him to place his hands behind his back…”
Ramirez then called an ambulance for the man, who “complained of left leg pain” but ultimately decided not to go to the hospital.
DeJesus’ lawsuit argues that this earlier incident should have alerted Walmart about a proclivity on Ramirez’ part toward using excessive force.
The complaint states, “Employees or agents of Walmart should have known about Defendant Ramirez’s tendency to escalate situations and engage in excessive force toward customers, both because of the incident that had occurred earlier that day with another customer and because of his reputation and his conduct on that day.”