Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Miraculous Discovery

Paper Trial

The curious emergence of documents relating
to the death of Bridgeport youth Raylyn George


By Lorraine Gengo
Fairfield Weekly


After six months of assurances that the city had no documents concerning the shooting death of a black Bridgeport youth that may or may not have involved a city cop, and after seeking to censure the attorney who had petitioned under the Freedom of Information Act for said documents, Bridgeport associate city attorney Melanie J. Howlett last Monday produced 21 pages of paperwork relating to the Aug. 25, 2005 shooting.

Howlett located the documents in the archives of the West Side precinct just in time to meet the Feb. 12 deadline set by the state’s Freedom of Information Commission. At the commission hearing on Jan. 18, Howlett testified that the city had no documents related to the shooting of Raylyn George—a point she stressed repeatedly—because the Connecticut state police, and not the Bridgeport P.D. conducted the investigation. “We do not keep a duplicate file and the breadth of the investigation was within their department,” Howlett told hearing officer Mary E. Schwind.

When asked why she was suddenly able to locate documents that prior to the commission hearing she had emphatically insisted did not exist, Howlett abruptly replied: "That's a pending matter. There’s no way you'll get a comment out of me. Have a nice day."

  • Complete Article
  • 1 comment:

    Connecticut Man1 said...

    "That's a pending matter. There’s no way you'll get a comment out of me. Have a nice day."

    Someone has learned something from the bush administration... lol