PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The lawsuit alleges the department mishandled the case from the beginning and that Dabela not only didn't commit suicide, there's still a killer on the loose."
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STORY: "Police Chief Disciplined In Suicide Case, Subject Of Complaints In addition to the suit filed by the family of Peter Valenti, Chief Douglas Fuchs' actions are the subject of other complaints and a suit", by reporter Colin Miner, published by The Patch on November 22, 2017.
GIST: "It is just before 2 a.m., the morning of April 5, 2014, and officers from the Redding Police Department are responding to a call of an overturned car on Umpawaug Road near Wayside Lane. Just off the road, in a leaf and dirt covered area, they find a Mercedes SUV one its roof. The driver's door was partially open. The windshield on the driver's side was shattered. Inside they found 39-year-old Gugsa Abraham Dabela, a local lawyer known to his family and friends simply as "Abe." When officers removed Dabela from the vehicle, they discovered he had two head wounds consistent with a bullet entering and exiting his head. He was pronounced dead at 2:11 a.m. Fatal crashes in Redding are not very common. While the town is fairly big by Connecticut standards, encompassing about 36 square miles, there are almost never more than two crashes in a year; often, there are none, according to local police records. About six hours later — before an autopsy had been done, before forensics tests had been run, before Dabela's family had been notified — a press release was issued by the police department saying that Dabela had been found dead. The release stated that the cause of death was suicide. It is a case – with its quickly made judgment – that has received renewed scrutiny in light of the department's handling of the suicide of Peter Valenti, who was first mistaken for a dummy and then left unexamined for about 30 minutes; time in which he possibly could have been saved. While the state police would eventually support the conclusion of suicide in the Dabela case— and it is certainly possible that's how Dabela died — Dabela's family is suing the department, accusing police of rushing to judgment rather than throughly investigating the incident. The lawsuit alleges the department mishandled the case from the beginning and that Dabela not only didn't commit suicide, there's still a killer on the loose. They say Dabela was not depressed and had not demonstrated any suicidal tendencies, and pointed to the fact that over the past few hours, he had been in two restaurants handing out business cards, trying to drum up new business. They also point to the fact that Dabela's DNA was not found on the trigger, though the DNA belonging to three other people — none of them responding police officers — was. They allege that while Dabela's hands were never tested for gunshot residue, the cuffs of his jacket were, and those tests came back negative. Not the only case: The case of Abe Dabela is now one of several instances in which the actions of the Redding Police Department and its chief, Douglas Fuchs, are being scrutinized."
Read on at the link below:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
