The legislator who wrote Connecticut’s new “vulnerable users” law criticized New Haven cops for letting two pedestrian-hitters off the hook — and promised to strengthen the law so it gets enforced more in the future.
The legislator, New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar, made those remarks Monday during an interview on WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
He also suggested a two-step way to raise $380 million in new state revenue and therefore undo painful budget cuts currently under consideration in Hartford. And he criticized New Haven Mayor Toni Harp for assuming the presidency of the Board of Education. (He argued that the mayor’s dual roles present a conflict in presenting an education budget to the mayor’s office for approval, and that it “limits the opportunity for public interaction and discourse.”
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Lemar (pictured), a third-term Democratic legislator who represents the East Rock, Fair Haven and Wooster Square neighborhoods along with part of East Haven, called Public Act 14 – 31, the “vulnerable users” law that went into effect a year ago, a compromise between his original version and what he and allies could get passed. It fines motorists $1,000 if, in driving recklessly, they “seriously” injure a pedestrian, cyclist, construction worker, skateboarder, or wheelchair-bound street-crosser.
It fines the drivers — if the police charge them in the first place.
Which hasn’t happened in New Haven, as far as Lemar and the police themselves know. Even though, in Lemar’s opinion, at least four incidents have occurred that merited arresting the driver.
He cited one case as a prime example: A collision that occurred at the corner of Orchard and Elm streets on Oct. 29 around 3:20 p.m. A school bus had deposited a 7‑year-old boy there at the end of the school day. The driver had extended the bus’s stop sign out into the street. A Yale graduate student happened to be driving on Elm Street at the time. She ignored the stop sign, drove through it, and struck the boy.
The boy went to the hospital, where he received a cast on his right ankle to help him heal from a sprain and a fracture.
Police decided that didn’t count as a “serious” enough injury, so they charged the driver with an infraction that carries a $450 fine.
“Clearly the intention of the law was to have that person fined” the $1,000, Lemar argued Monday. He said he would consider it “serious” for a little boy to need a cast for leg injuries.
“The idea that that person wasn’t charged is infuriating to me,” Lemar said. “This is an embarrassment” that New Haven police, like police in many other Connecticut communities, have apparently yet found a collision serious enough to invoke the law.
He said he would also consider it “serious” under the law if a struck pedestrian needs to miss work because of pain suffered in a collision with a negligent driver — as Yale University Art Gallery fellow LaTanya Autry did due to arm and leg injuries suffered when a police officer drove into her on Chapel Street, knocking her to the ground, on Oct. 19 (as pictured in the video at the top of this story). Police did consider invoking the law in that case, but concluded that the injuries weren’t serious enough. (Read about that here.) Lemar said he’d need to know more about this case to say definitively that the officer should be charged, but “if it was up to me, yes,” he would have been.
New Haven police note they’ve received little guidance on how to interpret the law, beyond this definition posted on the state judicial branch website: “‘Serious physical injury’ is something more serious than mere physical injury, which is defined as “impairment of physical condition or pain.” It is more than a minor or superficial injury. It is defined by statute as ‘physical injury’ which creates a substantial risk of death, or which causes serious disfigurement, serious impairment of health or serious loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ.”
Lemar argued that police shouldn’t hesitate to invoke the law out of fear that a prosecutor or judge won’t agree — let the courts work it out, then, he said. He was asked if it’s a mistake for police to press charges if they’re not confident that a law applies, if instead the fault lies with lawmakers who didn’t word the statute more succinctly.
“Yes. Collectively we passed a watered-down version of this bill in order to get it on the books and move from there. Without question, this needs to get stronger,” Lemar responded. He said he intends to raise the issue when he receives an award in two weeks from the state police chiefs’ organization for having pressed cyclist and pedestrian-protection laws. He said he will “absolutely” press in the upcoming session to improve the law in three ways:
• Defining “serious physical injury” better, so that it will apply in cases like the collision involving the 7‑year-old boy.
• Better defining the “due caution” motorists must exercise.
• Add mandatory driver retraining to the penalty for violating the law.
State Budget Emergency Solved?
Also in the WNHH interview, Lemar offered two ways to solve the state budget crisis. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders to close an estimated $300 million gap in the current year’s budget.
Rather than cut Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals by $63.4 million or slash school-readiness and arts grants, Lemar said, he would add a 1 percent tax surcharge to capital gains over $500,000. He said the Office of Fiscal Analysis estimates such a surcharge would bring in $80 million. People now pay the regularly top 6.99 percent income tax rate on capital gains over $500,000.
“There’s mass accumulation of wealth in the top 1 percent, top 5 percent in Connecticut. A 1 percent capital gains tax would help solve” the budget problem without hurting the poor, Lemar argued. He argued that, contrary to opponents’ predictions, people wouldn’t move out of Connecticut simply to avoid the 1 percent surcharge, which he said would still leave them taxed less than if they lived in, say, Massachusetts or New York (though not Florida).
He also proposed instituting a so-called “Walmart Tax” on large employers that pay their workers so little that the workers receive food stamps or other state aid, often with their employers’ encouragement. The proposed fee would raise $300 million a year, he said.
Of course, not even Democrat legislative negotiators are considering tax increases in the emergency talks. Gov. Malloy has said tax increases are off the table. Lemar argued that they should be put on.
Click on or download the above audio file to listen to the full radio interview with Lemar. The first segment concerns Syrian refugees and the decision by East Rock-based Integrated Refugee and Immigration Services (IRIS) to accept a family. The state budget discussion begins at 15:35; the Board of Education discussion at 43:14; the vulnerable users law discussion at 47:00.