Five members of the New Haven, Connecticut, police force have been placed on leave while the city investigates their behavior after Randy Cox, a Black man, was paralyzed in their custody earlier this month.
Cox, 36, was arrested June 19 on a weapons possession charge. Police footage of his arrest shows him handcuffed and placed in the back of police van, where he was launched, headfirst, into a wall when the officer driving the vehicle apparently braked suddenly. Despite telling the officers that “I think I broke my neck. I broke my neck. I can’t move,” Cox was nevertheless taken first to be booked at the local detention center where police ungracefully dumped his body in a wheelchair before he was subsequently taken for medical care at a nearby hospital. He eventually had surgery to fuse several broken vertebrae, per The New York Times.
