On Saturday, March 30, the Asian American Cultural Center is hosting a cultural show to celebrate Pan-Asian American Heritage Month. Started last year, the showcase has become an annual event set to take place each spring. This year, the show’s theme is “Nostalgia and the Path Forward.”

“There is such a wide variety of acts beautifully representing this year’s theme for Pan Asian American Heritage Month, and I can’t wait to see our planning come to fruition,” said Thomas Kannam ’26, who organized the event in coordination with the AACC’s Assistant Director Sheraz Iqbal. 

Kannam said that they reserved the auditorium in the fall and worked on promotional content, scheduling and logistics over the past few months.

After advertising the show through entries in the AACC’s newsletter, posts on social media, physical fliers and personal outreach, Kannam finalized a lineup of thirteen performers from various affinity groups on campus. The showcase includes solo acts along with group performances from students affiliated with the AACC.

Showcase participant and an AACC First-Year Coordinator Marissa Halagao ’27 said shows like the one planned for Saturday exemplify the strength of the Asian community at Yale. 

Halagao, along with other members of Yale’s Filipinx student association, Kasama, will dance the Tinikling, a traditional Filipino dance that mimics the movements of the small “tikling” rail bird present across the Pacific. The dance form is known for its incorporation of bamboo poles. 

The group will dance to choreography by Resty Fufunan ’24, Ava Estacio-Touhey ’25 and Mark Chung ’25. Their performance will include traditional Filipino Tinikling and modernized components, which Halagao said represent the diaspora’s reclamation and adaptation of the dance style.

According to Halagao, Tinikling is thought to have originated during the period of Spanish colonization, when Filipinos forced to work on plantain farms were beaten with bamboo poles. Halagao said the dance evolved into a symbol of resilience and cultural reclamation over generations, ultimately becoming the national dance of the Philippines.

“Dancing Tinikling as a Filipino American has been so empowering for me,” she said, expressing her anticipation for the upcoming show. 

Along with providing Tinikling choreography, Chung is performing with UNITY —- Yale’s only student group dedicated to traditional Korean drumming. On Saturday, the group will play a style of drumming called “samul nori” that includes percussion instruments commonly used in Korean folk music. “Samul” means “four things,” while “nori,” means to play, and the genre’s name refers to four musicians and their respective instruments. 

Chung said UNITY, which was originally founded in 1991, was revitalized this spring after becoming inactive during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group has been rehearsing for the show since its revival. According to Chung, efforts by KASY — Korean American Students at Yale — and opportunities like the PAAHM Cultural Show have helped facilitate UNITY’s return.

“This has definitely been a learning process,” said Chung. “Many of us have played music before but are new to traditional music.”

The group’s efforts will culminate this Saturday along with the other performers including Stella Choi ’26 Sunehra Subah ’24, Annabelle Huang ’26, Valentina Pham ’24, Linh Buu ’26, Kelly Tran ’27, Linda Do ’27, Jana Nguyenová MED ’25, Eunice Kiang ’24 and Patricia Joseph ’26.

Kannam said the most rewarding aspect of planning the showcase is celebrating Asian creativity on campus. Noting the diversity of this year’s acts, he underscored the honored cultural traditions and innovative techniques that both make up the showcase’s performances. 

“I think art and performance has a unique ability to bring people together,” they said. “It’s one of the most effective paths forward.”

The Whitney Humanities Center’s Auditorium is located at 53 Wall St.

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Just three days into the 2023-24 academic year, Salovey announced his intent to depart as president of the University this summer. Salovey, who is 65, did not specify a particular reason for his departure, which he did not classify as a retirement.

“I’ve been in higher administration — dean, provost and president — for 21 years, and at a personal level, it just felt that the time was right,” Salovey said in an interview this morning with the News in advance of the announcement’s release. “I very much want to finish my career at Yale, and I wanted to finish the way it started. I started as a graduate student and then as a professor, teaching and writing, doing research. I want to come full circle.”

Salovey wrote that should the search for his successor not be complete by June 30, he has expressed to Yale Corporation senior trustee Joshua Bekenstein ’80 his willingness to extend his tenure to provide “leadership continuity.”

Ultimately, he said he plans to return to the Yale faculty, work on writing and research projects and help with University fundraising.

“There is no perfect moment for one — there is always more to do,” he wrote in the announcement. “Yet, I believe the best time to search for a new leader is when things are going well. It allows for a thoughtful process and a smooth transition.”

Within the first paragraph of his announcement, Salovey noted the “very good news” that Yale’s “For Humanity” fundraising campaign surpassed a whopping $5 billion milestone over the summer, climbing toward the University’s total $7 billion goal. 

Salovey expects his future role in University fundraising to remain similar after his departure as president, he told the News this morning.

“Beyond this year, I will stay deeply involved in fundraising, appearing at events [and] meeting with alumni and friends,” Salovey said. “I don’t think you’re going to see much change in my fundraising as president and as president emeritus.”

Before starting as president of the University in 2013, Salovey served as Yale’s provost from 2008 to 2013, as dean of Yale College from 2004 to 2008 and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2004. He received two undergraduate degrees in sociology and psychology from Stanford University in 1980 and three graduate degrees from Yale all in psychology. He is credited with co-developing the “emotional intelligence” framework, which is the theory that just as people can have a range of intellectual abilities, they also have a range of measurable emotional skills.

Salovey’s predecessor, Richard Levin, stepped down after 20 years as president on June 30, 2013. Levin, who was also 65 at the time, was the most senior president in the Ivy League and reportedly one of the longest-serving in University history, according to the New York Times.

Levin began to consider stepping down after securing labor contracts with Yale unions over the summer of 2012. During Levin’s tenure, clerical, maintenance and service employees went on major strikes twice in 1996 and then again in both 2002 and 2003. 

In 2009, the University and its two main unions at the time — Local 35, which represents dining hall and maintenance workers, and Local 34, which represents clerical and technical workers — agreed on new three-year agreements nine months before their then-current contracts expired.

The University has fought graduate students’ efforts to unionize for decades. Salovey’s announcement comes just under eight months after Yale’s graduate and professional student workers voted to unionize; the University officially recognized the election’s results and confirmed that it would begin “bargaining in good faith” with Local 33. 

“I had been thinking about it, thinking it was one or two more years more, and I think once the labor contract was settled I thought at least it makes it possible to go now,” Levin told the News when he announced his intention to leave the role on Aug. 30, 2012.

Salovey was offered the position on Nov. 8 of the same year.

But four years before Salovey was officially offered the position, speculation swirled that Levin had essentially selected his own successor when he picked Salovey to serve as provost. 

“Peter Salovey will certainly be one of the people that would be among those who could be candidates for the future, obviously,” Levin told the News in 2008. “He’s done all the key leadership jobs in the University at this point. I have a lot of confidence in Peter, and the Corporation does as well.”

To fill Levin’s shoes, a presidential search committee directed by the Yale Corporation — the board that governs the University — considered more than 150 candidates. 

Berkstein told the News that the board of trustees has already kickstarted efforts to tap Yale’s next president.

“The first thing we’re going to do is get a lot of input from the Yale community,” Bekenstein told the News this morning, discussing the process of finding Salovey’s successor. “We named eight trustees to the search committee, and we’re going to add four faculty.” 

Among other accomplishments throughout his time as president, Salovey highlighted in his announcement progress on campus facility construction and renovation as well as on increasing diversity within the student body. Salovey told the News that increasing the size of Yale College, creating multidisciplinary centers like the Humanities Quadrangle, creating innovation centers such as the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale — Tsai CITY — and increasing the share of first-generation, low-income students on campus helped to accomplish his goals.

“Of course, I respect scholarship for its own sake, but I also want Yale to have great impact on the world, ” Salovey told the News this morning. “I would say we are, as compared to 10 years ago, indeed, more accessible, more unified and more innovative.”

While Salovey thanked university groups including trustees, deans, faculty members and staff in his announcement, he thanked only his wife, Marta Elisa Moret, by name. He also made note that Moret, who graduated from the School of Public Health in 1984 and is president of New Haven public health consulting firm Urban Policy Strategies, pushed off her retirement to support Salovey in his role as president. 

“I appreciate that she has delayed her full retirement to help me in a role not characterized by work-life balance,” he wrote. 

Salovey and Moret met during their graduate studies at Yale.

Correction, Aug. 31: This article has been updated with the correct spelling of senior trustee Joshua Bekenstein’s name. 

The post Salovey to step down appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Aug. 20: Yale College class of 2027 arrives on campus. Yale Daily News Managing Editor Sophie Sonnenfeld gives us a glimpse of what move-in is like for first-year and transfer students. 

Produced by Sophie Sonnenfeld and Max Sternlicht.

The post First-year students move to campus appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Yale College Democrats hosted Carney, who became the longest-serving press secretary of the 21st century, for the speaker event, which was moderated by David Acquaah-Mensah ’25. At the talk, students asked about Carney’s proudest and most challenging moments in the White House, his work as an Amazon executive and his reporting days during a question-and-answer session that followed.

Dems president Josh Guo ’24 said that his organization invited Carney to speak because of how his unique experiences in political journalism have shaped his perspectives on public policy.

“Mr. Carney is someone who had an inner look on President Obama’s presidency and holds an understanding on how important policy, such as the Affordable Care Act, is created and presented to the public,” Guo told the News. “We hope that many more members of the Yale community are inspired to enter similar careers in political journalism and communications.”

As an undergraduate at Yale, Carney majored in Russian and Eastern European studies. This interest in the Soviet Union spurred his choice of major once he reached college. Serendipity struck for Carney when Gorbachev came to power, as it allowed him to focus his senior thesis not only on historical facts of the post-Stalin Soviet Union but also on what was happening in the region in real-time. Suddenly, Carney explained, his studies at Yale became “the most interesting story in the world.” 

Carney worked as an intern with Time Magazine during the summer before his senior year at Yale. After college, Carney landed a job as a reporter with the Miami Herald and later became Time’s Miami Bureau Chief. While he enjoyed covering stories in Miami, Carney said he wanted to report in Moscow. In 1990, Carney got his wish when Time sent him to Moscow as a correspondent. He stayed there for three years covering the Soviet Union’s fall. 

“So I was very focused as I left [Yale], on getting to Moscow somehow as a reporter, it took me a little while but not that long,” he joked. 

Students who attended the event enjoyed hearing about Carney’s journey from Yale to reporting and, eventually, to the White House under the Obama administration.

“Overall, I liked the event,” Prince Osaji ’26 told the News. “I thought it was cool to hear about [Carney’s] journey from being a reporter to working inside the White House, and I thought the shift in his perception of the government during this transition was interesting. He was also very relatable, so that was enjoyable too.”

Other attendees, including RJ Kelly ’25, said they enjoyed hearing from Carney because his perspective on politics and journalism is grounded in actual experience in a presidential administration.  

With his shift from sitting in front of the podium to speaking behind it, Carney said he initially had “a lot to learn” about how White House communications teams operate. For example, Carney said he quickly realized that lining up more interviews is not always best. Instead, Carney said he grew careful about how to use interviews as a resource, understanding that each interaction with the press can be “high-risk, high-reward” for an elected official. 

In other ways, Carney said the transition was easier, as, for example, he became a bit less restricted in his ability to express political opinions. 

“I believe deeply in the President’s agenda and the goodness of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and agree with what they believe in,” Carney said. “And suddenly I could say so and not only say it but fight for it and advocate for it. That was incredibly liberating.”

One of the hardest moments on the job, Carney said, was when he had to field questions from the press about the White House’s botched management of their Obamacare website healthcare.gov, which he described as a “slow-moving trainwreck.” On the last day of enrollment, people attempting to use the website were faced with delays, outages and glitches. 

Looking at the current Biden White House, Carney celebrated the work of former Press Secretary Jen Psaki and current Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. He said he feels Biden’s communications team has done well so far. 

“I think Karine does a great job of keeping her poise, getting the information out and handling the tough questions without making herself the story,” he reflected. “You don’t want to be caricatured on Saturday Night Live. It means something has gone wrong.”

During the event’s question-and-answer portion, one attendee asked about Carney’s work as Amazon’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs. Given the criticism Amazon has received from elected officials over labor, corporate tax and environmental issues, the student asked if Carney’s Amazon role aligned with his values and previous work under Biden and Obama. 

In response, Carney highlighted Amazon’s move to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018 among other more recent bumps in pay for some workers. 

“I’m not saying Amazon is perfect by any means, but I did feel comfortable there [morally], because of what we’re doing on wages,” Carney said. 

Carney served as White House Press Secretary from 2011 to 2014.

Sophie Wang contributed reporting. 

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In court Monday, five witnesses took the stand to testify, including one person who witnessed the murder while others had interacted with Pan as he fled in an SUV. Prosecutors in Tuesday’s hearing shifted focus towards physical evidence. This included testimony from two state forensic scientists and one New Haven police detective who described the blood stains, gunshot residue and skin tissue found in the SUV, pointing to Pan as the murderer. 

At the end of the two-day hearings, State Superior Court Judge Jon Alander LAW ’78 found probable cause for Pan to have committed the crime. Now, prosecutors will try Pan for murder before a jury where Pan must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

“This should be the result,” Jiang’s father, Mincheng Jiang told the New Haven Independent following the judge’s ruling on Tuesday. ​“The evidence is clear.”

After Jiang was found shot dead in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood in February 2021, Pan evaded police for months. 

After being named a person of interest in the case, Pan’s evasion triggered a months-long manhunt as he fled with seven cellphones, $19,000 in cash and his father’s passport. Investigators tracked him down in Georgia where he was arrested and charged with murder in May 2021.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Allison Gingell, a state forensic science examiner, testified about finding gunshot residue inside the stolen SUV Pan had been driving. To test for gunshot residue, investigators collected samples from the ceiling of the vehicle, as residue can float up and become lodged in the vehicle’s headliner if a gun was fired, NHPD Detective David Parker explained in his testimony in court.

Gingell also said she detected gunshot residue on a yellow jacket Pan had been seen with. That jacket was found abandoned among bags full of ammunition boxes and a firearm outside a North Haven Arby’s — down the street from a hotel where Pan had checked in the night after the murder. 

Steven Bryant, another state forensic science examiner testified that he had found traces of Jiang’s skin tissue in a knit winter hat that was found in the bags outside Arby’s as well. On Monday, North Haven Police Sgt. Jeffrey James Mills had testified that he saw Pan wearing the same hat. The hat also could be seen in Mills’ body camera footage which prosecutors played in court Monday.

In his testimony, New Haven Detective David Parker explained how a license plate-shaped dent in Jiang’s Toyota matched up with the license plate holder on the SUV that Pan drove. Prosecutors pulled up photos of the dent with measurement tape attached to compare it to the SUV’s plate holder. 

When investigating the vehicle, Parker also found traces of Jiang’s blood speckled on fuses he found ripped from the SUV and tucked away in a pocket of the vehicle.

Investigators also found traces of blood on the gearshift and a speckle of blood on a mask that was in one of the car’s side door pockets.

In his concluding remarks, Pan’s attorney, Kevin Smith, argued the evidence presented in court was not reliable. Smith claimed that investigators did not thoroughly look for evidence and that witness testimonies from Monday and Tuesday relied on “inferences.”  

But State Superior Court Judge Jon Alander LAW ’78 ultimately sided with prosecutors.

“The state has met its burden of proof,” he said.

On Wednesday, Pan’s attorneys requested Pan’s bond be lowered to $2 million from his current $20 million bond, which Judge Gerald Harmon denied.

The post Judge finds probable cause linking Pan to murder of Yale grad student Kevin Jiang appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Now Morgan is suing fifteen employees who worked for the Cheshire Correctional Institution over their handling of that February 2017 incident, claiming the correctional officers’ actions constituted cruel and unusual punishment and thus violated his eighth amendment rights. Morgan’s claims include mishandling of the initial situation by the captain-in-charge and a lax response from officers to get Morgan medical care. 

In court last Thursday, attorneys for Morgan and the fifteen defendants focused on the prison’s process for filing grievances and how that process played out for Morgan.

“At no time from the time of his injuries to his return to CCI from BCC Medical Burn Unit did Morgan receive counseling, accommodation, or assistance in filing a grievance,” his complaint claims.

In February 2017, Morgan, who is serving a 35-year sentence for two homicides, said he observed his cellmate, identified in court documents as “J.B.”, sharpening a toothbrush along the window screen of the cell. Morgan alleges he then heard J.B. say that he planned to stab anyone who annoyed him. He said he verbally reported J.B.’s behavior to former Captain James Watson, who oversaw Morgan’s cell. Morgan said he then submitted a written request form “on or about” Feb. 17 requesting a cell change.

Five days later around 12:45 a.m., as Morgan was sleeping, J.B. threw hot water from a pot on Morgan. The skin on Morgan’s face, back, arms, chest, ears and hands blistered instantly. After the incident, Morgan was kept in the hospital for ten days.

According to Morgan’s complaint, when he returned to prison at CCI, it was another inmate instead of prison employees that told him he had to file an official grievance regarding the incident.

Morgan filed that grievance on April 10. But the Department of Corrections sent it back to him three times, citing errors such as sending it to the wrong person or unit and that Morgan did not provide sufficient information. After the third time re-submitting the grievance, Morgan did not hear back, according to his complaint.

In court, Assistant State’s Attorney James Donohue countered Morgan’s claim, saying that Morgan failed to follow through in the grievance process. Donohue said that Morgan should have followed up on his grievance status.

According to The Prison Litigation Reform Act, an incarcerated person must exhaust all remedies in filing a grievance and pursue all available administrative appeals before they can sue. “If you file a lawsuit in federal court before taking your complaints through every step of your prison’s grievance procedure, it will almost certainly be dismissed,” the ACLU states in their explanation of the PLRA.

Thus, Donohue maintained that several of Morgan’s claims in the suit against CCI employees should be barred by the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement.

“He did not use the exhaustive process,” Donohue told the court. “He didn’t even attempt it.”

Judge Janet Bond Arterton, who presided over the hearing, inquired how many people do use the exhaustive process, Donohue was not able to provide an answer.

Arterton asked if returning the grievance without an answer would be creating a procedural dead end for Morgan. Donohue answered that Morgan could have refiled that April 10 grievance.

Donohue added that although the April 10 grievance filing was verified, the content of previous requests and conversations with Captain Watson — including the request to change cells and reporting of the toothbrush sharpening — were not.

The initial written request to change cells was included in Morgan’s court documents, but Donohue noted that it was unsigned, undated and left unclear when it was drafted. Thus, Donohue argued, Morgan’s grievances leading up to the incident were not enough for Watson to see a clear and present danger.

Arterton asked about Morgan’s mention of a weapon and his fears about J.B.’s behavior.

“Why can’t a reasonable juror find that Watson was aware of a substantial risk?” Arterton asked.

Donohue argued that the cell-change request letter Morgan sent in made no mention of a weapon. Later on, Donohue said, Morgan even told one CCI lieutenant that J.B. threw away the weapon after being questioned. Donohue told the court this indicated there were “multiple contradictory claims from the plaintiff.”

Morgan filed his lawsuit complaint on Feb. 24, 2020.

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Just feet in front of them sat Qinxuan Pan – a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher charged with murdering Jiang in February 2021. The hearing took place before State Superior Court Judge Jon Alander LAW ’78 in the Chapel Street courthouse. In probable cause hearings this week, the state aims to convince Alander that there is sufficient evidence linking Pan to the murder. If Alander agrees, prosecutors can proceed with the criminal case. 

Attorneys called on witnesses who recounted the murder and their interactions with Pan that night, including a neighbor who witnessed the murder, responding officers, a scrap metal yard security guard and a tow truck driver.

“I hope to see justice soon,” Jiang’s mother Linda Liu told the News after the hearing concluded for the day. “Not for money or fame but for the truth.”

Monday’s hearing marks Pan’s first lengthy appearance in court as his attorneys delayed the case for months. After Pan’s arrest, judges granted Pan and his attorney multiple extensions to review evidence. Pan’s lawyer claimed that Pan was having difficulty reading through documents related to the case because Pan had limited access to the prison library. 

In September, Pan’s attorney asked Alander to order a “competency exam,” saying Pan was a “communicative challenge” and that he could not obtain “a straight answer” from him. Ultimately, with results from the exam Alander granted, Pan was deemed fit for trial in early November.

In the courtroom, the witness accounts wove a narrative of events surrounding the murder, from East Rock’s Lawrence Street, to a North Haven scrap metal yard, to snow-covered railroad tracks, Arby’s and a Best Western hotel. Prosecutors presented evidence including video footage of the shooting as captured from a neighbor’s outward-facing living room security camera, Jiang’s autopsy report and various photographs of the murder scene.

Lawrence Street, East Rock, New Haven. February 6, 8:35 p.m.

The first piece of witness testimony came from a neighbor, identified as Nicole, who saw the shooting outside her window. After she saw a man firing shots at Jiang, she said she saw the shooter enter the driver’s side of an SUV with tinted windows.

“It replays in my head almost every day,” she said Monday morning.

Pan’s attorney, Kevin Smith, asked Nicole if there was another person in the car to which she replied that she saw only one person get into the vehicle.

NHPD Officer Casey O’Brien testified next, recalling how he had been working overtime on his second shift as a patrol officer in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood that night. By the time he got to the scene of the murder, the New Haven Fire Department and a medical response team were already there.

Jiang was deceased and bleeding heavily, O’Brien said. About 30 feet away from Jiang’s body, a silver Toyota Prius was parked in the middle of the street with its hazard lights on. O’Brien secured the crime scene with tape and blocked off the area. When he was done, he ran the Toyota’s plates and determined that it belonged to Kevin Jiang.

O’Brien conducted a neighborhood canvas and said he spoke with three people including one neighbor who had an outward-facing camera in his living room window. The man showed O’Brien partial footage of the murder which O’Brien recorded on his cell phone.  

As prosecutors played the video in court, Pan leaned in to watch intently. The video shows a dark SUV pulling up behind the parked Toyota, with a loud bang indicating that the cars had collided. Jiang turns on his hazard lights and exits the car. Then gunshots are heard — two or three followed by a succession of faster shots.

Then, according to Nicole’s account and the footage, the dark SUV pulled away.

Sims Scrap Metal Yard, North Haven. February 6, 9 p.m.

Joseph Cusano works as a security guard at Sims Metal Management just off Exit 9 along I-91 in North Haven. Most nights, Cusano’s main role is to make sure there are no trespassers and no fires in the scrap metal yard.

On Feb. 6, 2021, he was working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift and estimated there were about six other people working at the yard that night.

Cusano told the court that he saw a dark SUV pull into the lot just before 9 p.m. At first, Cusano said he thought it was a food delivery person since a similar vehicle had come delivering food a few days before. Inside this vehicle, he saw an Asian male in the driver’s seat and did not see anyone else in the vehicle. Typically, Cusano said he keeps the gate halfway closed, but the man drove right through the gate.

Cusano said he saw the car speeding off toward the back of the lot. That area, Cusano said, is “just piles of metal” so Cusano drove after him, following him to the back. Cusano rolled down his window when the driver turned his vehicle around to face him, but said the man ignored him and sped away. 

The driver drove off towards the gate, the only entrance or exit in the five-acre fenced-in yard. But just before the exit, the driver veered off to the right into what Cusano described as a “cubby hole.” To escape the dead end of scrap dumpsters, the driver made a six-point turn. Cusano again attempted to make contact with the driver, gesturing in the direction out of the lot.

The driver attempted to speed off again, this time turning a sharp left directly into another dead end. At this point, Cusano and the drivers’ windshields were directly facing each other, just feet apart. Then, according to Cusano, the driver firmly swept his hand in one motion across his throat. 

“I took it to mean: stop following me,” Cusano told the court.

Despite repeated attempts to redirect the man, he would not make eye contact with Cusano, maintaining what Cusano referred to as a “ghost-like” expression on his face.

“It made me feel very nervous,” Cusano said. “There was no reason for him to be back there –- he was just running from me.”

Smith, Pan’s attorney, asked whether it was possible the man was not gesturing a threat but was simply adjusting something around his neck. Cusano responded no. To him, it was clear what the motion meant.

The driver maneuvered around Cusano’s vehicle, zooming off to the back of the lot and cutting straight through an opening in the fence. In that direction, Cusano said there was just a dirt access road. Cusano followed and said he saw the driver attempt to drive across railroad tracks behind the yard. But the car got stuck, wheels lodged in the second set of tracks.

At this point Cusano decided to call the police and returned to the main gate to meet North Haven Police, who arrived on the scene within five to ten minutes.

As with Nicole, Smith pressed Cusano on if it was possible for there to have been other people in the vehicle that entered the lot.

“Unless someone was laying down or materialized out of thin air there was no one else,” Cusano said.

North Haven Police Department Sgt. Jeffery James Mills was one of two North Haven officers who arrived at the scrap metal yard. Mills said he was not aware of the murder in New Haven that had occurred earlier that same night.

Cusano directed Mills to the back of the lot where Mills drove up to the railroad tracks, approaching the dark blue GMC SUV. The driver, identified as Pan when he presented Mills with his Massachusetts driver’s license, told Mills he got lost.

Initially, Mills said Pan told him the car was his. When Mills ran the car plates, the system indicated that it was a stolen, lost or missing plate. Mills asked for Pan’s registration at which point Pan changed his answer, claiming it was a rental. Mills asked Pan for the rental agreement and Pan could not provide it. Mills later asked a tow truck driver to take off the stolen plates but did not mention asking Pan any further questions.

In court, prosecutors showed Mills’ body camera footage as he encountered Pan on the tracks and as he peered in the SUV’s tinted backseat windows with his flashlight. Although unseen in the body camera footage, Mills said he was able to see a soft leather briefcase and a blue retail-style bag with a logo for Malden, Massachusetts on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

Mills said he did not take inventory of the belongings inside the vehicle and saw no blood, damage or gunshot residue inside the vehicle.

In Mills’ testimony and as seen in the footage, Pan was wearing a knit winter hat and a New England Patriots neck gaiter pulled up around his face. Mills said Pan was also holding a yellow jacket in his hands.

“The only thing I can do is call you a tow truck,” Mills told Pan in the footage. To get the car towed, Mills said Pan would have to pay in cash and recommended that Pan stay in a hotel for the night.

Tow truck ride, North Haven. 

Nicholas Johnson has worked as a recovery driver and mechanic with Nelcon Towing & Recovery for seven years. He responded to the call to tow the SUV that Pan drove that night.

“He was polite but overly polite,” Johnson said, recounting his encounter with Pan.

According to Johnson, the SUV was stuck sideways across the railroad tracks with the front two tires flat. He said he noticed damage on the vehicle’s front bumper.

Johnson informed Pan he would have to take the vehicle to the impound lot. The SUV was already on the tow truck bed, so Johnson told Pan he would have to retrieve Pan’s belongings because it would be a liability for Pan to climb on the bed. Pan did not listen and repeatedly climbed up on the bed to get his bags. Eventually, Johnson said he had to grab Pan by the back of his shirt and pull Pan down off the tow truck.

“He was fixated on getting his stuff out of the car,” Johnson testified.

Johnson reached to grab what he said were two to three bags that “had some weight to them.”

At the end of the ride, Johnson dropped Pan off at a Best Western hotel on Washington Avenue in North Haven.

Arby’s, North Haven. 267 Washington Avenue. Feb. 7, 11 a.m. 

The next morning,. Mills was dispatched to yet another site in North Haven.

At the Arby’s on Washington Avenue, just down the street from the Best Western hotel, employees had found bags on the restaurant’s driveway with a .45 caliber firearm and boxes of ammunition among other items.

The employees spread the items from the bags out across a table. One of the items caught Mills’ eye.

“It instantly hit me,” he said. “These were the bags in the back of the truck.”

Mills recognized the blue retail bag and the soft leather briefcase. Mixed in with the items he also noticed the same knit winter hat and yellow jacket that Pan wore the night before.

“A lightbulb went off,” Mills told the court.

Mills said that morning he was aware of the homicide in New Haven but was not sure if the firearm found was the same weapon.

North Haven officers tagged and transferred the evidence to the NHPD.

Best Western, North Haven. 201 Washington Avenue. 

Mills rushed off to the Best Western down the street to locate Pan.

Someone at the front desk told Mills that Pan had checked in the night before but had not checked out. When Mills got to Pan’s room, it was empty and untouched. One employee told Mills that when she checked the room to clean it earlier that morning, it appeared as if no one had stayed there overnight. Pan was gone.

With the five witness testimonies and fragments of evidence submitted, the court adjourned for the day with plans to continue the probable cause hearing back in court Tuesday morning.

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On Friday, attorneys representing Cox, the city of New Haven and the New Haven Police Department officers involved in his case filed a Proposed Case Management Plan in his lawsuit  over a June altercation with NHPD that left Cox permanently paralyzed. The plan mostly lays out agreed upon parameters for discovery if the case goes to trial, though both sides indicated in the filing a desire to settle the case.

“This agreement reflects the City’s ongoing desire to reach an early, reasonable settlement with Randy, and to engage in good faith settlement discussions as soon as both parties have sufficient information for them to begin,” wrote New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker in a press release. 

Cox sustained spine and neck injuries — leaving him paralyzed —  while being driven to a police station in a van without seat belts after being arrested for weapons charges that prosecutors later dropped. 

The injuries occurred when the NHPD officer behind the wheel stopped abruptly to avoid a car crash while speeding. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, the officer drove Cox to the police detention center. Officers then dragged Cox out of the van, processed him in a wheelchair and put him into a holding cell — all without providing medical care. When Cox repeatedly told the officers that he could not move, one officer responded by telling Cox he “just drank too much.”

In late September, Cox’s attorneys filed a lawsuit against the city of New Haven for $100 million, claiming the NHPD violated his fourth and fourteenth amendment rights. At the time, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the city was open to a settlement. The suit was also filed against the five officers involved in the incident. 

Those five officers remain on paid administrative leave and were arrested last week on misdemeanor charges brought by the state’s attorney office. Four of the five officers have since attempted to invoke qualified immunity in the civil case. The city has also responded to the lawsuit, claiming governmental immunity and contributory negligence as a defense, which has drawn the ire of Cox’s lawyers.

In a press conference held outside City Hall last week, Cox’s attorneys called on Elicker to support Cox’s recovery, but stopped short of asking directly for a settlement.

“We will listen objectively to anything the City says on Randy’s behalf. But what we won’t do is let them devalue him any further,” said Cox’s lawyer Ben Crump, a nationally renowned civil rights attorney.

The joint filing released on Friday includes language indicating that all parties are willing to discuss a settlement, and requests an early settlement conference between the parties.

That conference, which would be held with a magistrate judge, is not a guarantee of settlement, Connecticut American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Dan Barrett told the News.

“Sometimes, even when the two sides are talking, once you add that structure of a judge helping you out and pushing you, you get closer to an agreement,” Barrett explained. “Nobody’s saying, ‘I definitely want to settle.’ They’re just saying, ‘I’m open to talking about settling.’”

Jack O’Donnell, one of Cox’s attorneys, echoed Barrett’s sentiment that the filing was nothing out of the ordinary. “We’ve just agreed to talk,” he said.

The filing also contains details of what both parties would be seeking in discovery, which is where the parties may request documents from each other and depose witnesses. Both the plaintiff, Cox, and the defendants, the city and the police officers, anticipate taking depositions from 10-12 witnesses, as well as calling expert witnesses at any potential trial.

Elicker emphasized that he saw the filing as a way for the city to remain prepared in any potential litigation.

“It also provides for long-term contingency planning, that each side has agreed upon, should this case go to trial,” he said. “I am encouraged by this progress and am confident we all will continue to work in a collaborative manner to ensure that justice is ultimately served.”

The five NHPD officers charged are set to appear in the Elm Street state courthouse Thursday morning.

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At a press conference outside New Haven City Hall on Tuesday, Coleman spoke about Cox’s challenges, which include rehabilitation center staffing shortages and his deteriorating health due to insufficient care. Cox’s lawyers and family members described his precarious medical condition, criticized the leniency of the charges brought against the officers responsible for his paralyzation and questioned Mayor Justin Elicker’s commitment helping Cox’s case in light of recent legal filings.

“[The family is] here with a heavy heart today because they are responding to the recent developments in the ongoing saga for justice for Randy Cox, and it is becoming a saga,” said Cox’s lawyer Ben Crump, a nationally renowned civil rights attorney. “The family is becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of accountability.”

Cox sustained spine and neck injuries — leaving him paralyzed — on Father’s Day while being driven to a police station in a van without seat belts after being arrested for weapons charges that prosecutors later dropped. 

The injuries occurred when the New Haven Police Department officer behind the wheel stopped abruptly to avoid a car crash while speeding. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, the officer drove Cox to the police detention center. Officers then dragged Cox out of the van, processed him in a wheelchair, and put him into a holding cell- all without providing medical care. Cox repeatedly told the officers that he could not move while the officers brushed him off, telling him he “just drank too much.”

Crump said that the brutality Cox experienced and the delays in his search for justice were in part because Cox is Black.

“At what point do we keep saying Black lives don’t matter?” Crump asked the assembled crowd. “You cannot deny that Ms. Doreen is heartbroken, and her son is paralyzed. And why is that? Because it’s from a system that doesn’t value black people.”

The New Haven Independent published a compilation of the most relevant police body camera footage of Cox’s injury and jailing. 

Cops’ charges were “a slap on the wrist”

The primary issue that Cox’s lawyers highlighted was the weakness of the charges against the five officers who paralyzed Cox. The officers were each charged Monday with two misdemeanors: reckless endangerment in the second degree and cruelty to person.

“They got a misdemeanor slap on the wrist where they will probably see little to no jail time,” Crump said. “And Randy Cox has a life sentence. How’s that fair?”

Cox’s attorneys asserted that if a private citizen had paralyzed Cox in the manner that police did, they would be charged with a felony. They specified that assault with a motor vehicle was a charge they would like to have seen filed.

Crump also decried the lack of communication from the state’s attorney on the charges filed. He noted that prosecutors in Buffalo, where Crump is representing the victims of a racially-motivated mass shooting at a supermarket, had preemptively alerted the victims’ lawyers of the charges they hoped to bring. No such notice was given in Cox’s case.

LaToya Boomer, Cox’s sister, echoed the call for harsher charges against the officers. She described how if she, as a mother, failed to properly care for her child who broke their neck accidentally, she would be arrested on the spot and lose custody, her job and her house.

“These charges were a slap in the face.” Boomer said. “How is this fair?”

Boomer also read a statement by Cox to the crowd of reporters and supporters gathered on the steps of City Hall. Cox was glad to hear about the arrests, seeing them as the criminal justice system working and the start on a path towards justice.

“It’s time for a change,” Cox wrote in the statement. “This ain’t about me, it’s about the people that come after me, so no one else has to go through this. I have faith that all things will work out. I just have to trust the process and wait and see.”

Lawyers object to filings faulting Cox

Crump also took exception to a legal filing the city submitted last week that suggested Cox was partially responsible for his paralyzation, introducing a defense of “contributory negligence,” meaning Cox’s negligent behavior either led to or exacerbated his injuries.

“It’s astonishing to us in the family, the responses that we saw from the city and the officers is absolutely astonishing,” Crump said. “Unbelievable. Because the city has said they are going to take accountability for what happened.”

In September, Cox’s attorneys filed suit against the city and the officers involved for $100 million in damages. At the time, Mayor Justin Elicker signaled he was ready to settle, telling reporters settlement was “certainly on the table.”

Last week, the city seemed to reverse course, with a filing claiming the city should be protected by ​“governmental immunity.” This move, New Haven Corporation Counsel Patricia King told the New Haven Independent, was a required legal filing to preserve the city’s legal rights.

Four of the five officers named in Cox’s civil lawsuit filed briefs arguing that their behavior, which included dragging a paralyzed Cox into a holding cell and handcuffing him, was reasonable and covered under “qualified immunity” In large part these claims pointed to Cox as at fault for his own “negligence and carelessness.”

Crump called on Elicker to honor the promises he made to help Cox and his family, saying he knows the Mayor does not personally believe that Cox was responsible for his own injuries.

When asked whether he thought Cox was responsible for his paralyzation, Elicker declined to give a definitive answer, and instead said the city was interested in continuing the conversation with Cox’s legal team with the goal of coming to a settlement.   

“I represent the city and the lawyers have advised us that that is an appropriate legal filing as we continue this conversation,” he said at the press conference.

What’s next? 

New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson initially launched an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident which was then paused as state police conducted their five-month investigation that wrapped up in October. Now that Connecticut State’s Attorney’s office has charged those officers, Jacobson said the NHPD is reopening their IA case.

Once IA finishes the case, the office can refer recommendations on disciplinary actions to Jacobson. But Jacobson only has the power to issue punishments as severe as a 15-day suspension. The other course of action Jacobson can launch once the IA report is finalized is to refer the matter to the city’s Board of Police Commissioners. With a vote, that board has the power to terminate the officers. On Tuesday, Jacobson declined to say how long the IA investigation might take.

“There’s a lot of information there so our people are following up with that,” Jacobson said. “They have to identify all the policies and procedures that the officers violate and then give me a conclusion. I don’t have a timeline but obviously, this is important so we’re going to move as quickly as possible.”

NAACP Connecticut State Conference President Scot X. Esdaile, who spoke at the press conference, promised that the organization would turn out supporters of Cox at the cops’ court appearance.

“The NAACP will mobilize and organize individuals from across the state and across the nation to come to court and let their voices be heard when these individuals are arraigned in court,” Esdaile said.

The officers are set to appear in court next Thursday, Dec. 8.

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Pan’s attorney, Norm Pattis, first asked the Judge Jon Alander LAW ’78 to order a “competency exam” in September after experiencing difficulties communicating with Pan. 

This test determined if Pan was fit to stand trial by having Pan undergo an evaluation with a state or court-appointed psychiatrist. After reviewing Pan’s test results, State Superior Court Judge Gerald Harmon decided Monday morning that Pan was mentally fit after all. 

Pan’s probable cause hearing is now scheduled to take place on Dec. 5. 

In the September hearing, Pattis had told Judge Alander that Pan was a “communicative challenge” and that he could not obtain “a straight answer” from him. 

Pan, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, evaded police for months after Jiang was found shot dead in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood. After being named a person of interest in the case, Pan’s evasion triggered a months-long manhunt as he fled with seven cellphones, $19,000 in cash and his father’s passport. Investigators tracked him down in Georgia where he was arrested and charged with murder in May 2021.  

After the arrest, judges granted Pan and his attorney multiple extensions to review evidence. Pan’s lawyer claimed that Pan was having difficulty reading through documents related to the case because Pan had limited access to the prison library. 

Just when Jiang’s family and friends had packed the state courthouse for what they thought would be the probable cause hearing in September, Pattis halted the trial by asking for Pan’s competency exam. 

While Pattis acknowledged that Pan was aware of the charges the state brought against him, he told the judge that Pan had been uncooperative. According to Pattis, Pan provided only disjointed details about a potential second person involved in the murder or a different shooter. 

State-hired psychiatrists and social workers filed their sealed assessment of Pan for the competency exam on Nov. 2. 

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