By Harlan Levy
Journal Inquirer
WINDSOR LOCKS — The Finance Board on Tuesday approved an additional $8,200 to finish the outside investigation of police actions in the fatal Oct. 29 crash that killed 15-year-old bicyclist Henry Dang.
Former Hartford Police commander and lawyer Frank Rudewicz, the investigator who began the probe in January, notified Police Commission Chairman Neal Cunnigham on Tuesday that the $30,000 originally appropriated was not enough.
Cunningham told the Finance Board that Rudewicz wanted $7,000 to $14,000 to finish his investigation of the actions of Sgt. Robert Koistinen, other police personnel, and town officials on the night when Koistinen’s son, former officer Michael Koistinen, struck and killed Dang.
“The investigation proved to be more complicated than expected, and he has more people to interview,” Cunningham said. “He has interviewed all the Windsor Locks police officers involved, and he has six or seven officers from the regional accident reconstruction team still to be interviewed. He also has to go back and interview some of the Windsor Locks officers and the chief and then write his report.”
The Board of Selectmen now must call a town meeting to make the funds available. That may happen at next Tuesday’s board meeting.
The report won’t be ready until sometime in May at the earliest, Cunningham said, because of town meeting notice requirements and time to finish the interviews and write the report.
In January state police charged Sgt. Koistinen with hindering prosecution and interfering with the initial investigation of the accident. State police charged Michael Koistinen, 24, with manslaughter, negligent homicide, and attempted evidence tampering. The Police Commission fired him in December.
Sgt. Koistinen, 54, has been on administrative leave with pay at $73,000 a year.
Questions have been raised regarding why Michael Koistinen was not questioned at the scene and no blood, breath, or urine samples were taken to test for alcohol. State police say the younger man had been drinking for several hours before the accident.
Also, while his son was secured in the back seat of his cruiser, Sgt. Koistinen drove from the scene to the nearby police station and back twice before regional investigators arrived. And at Johnson Memorial Hospital with his son, he informed staff that his son refused tests to determine alcohol levels.
Other questions include why police stored Koistinen’s cruiser at the safety complex without securing it, whether Police Chief John Suchocki’s talking to the younger Koistinen that night was appropriate, and whether the appearance at the scene of First Selectman Steven Wawruck and Cunningham was appropriate.
Koistinen’s lawyer, Elliot Spector, said that Koistinen “didn’t prevent any single officer from taking any action at all. Nothing that he did amounts to interfering or hindering. He didn’t prevent a blood test. In the affidavit there’s not a single officer who said, ‘I couldn’t do my job, because I was prevented from doing my job by Robert Koistinen.’”
Spector added, “As soon as he found out his son was there he called up the police department and said, ‘Dispatcher, get in touch with the chief. Get the captain. Get the regional squad down here.’ He knew he couldn’t be involved in the investigation. The only thing he did was direct traffic.”
Spector also said Koistinen put his son in his cruiser for convenience and that the two trips to the station with his son were merely for communicating with a dispatcher and to get traffic equipment.
Robert Koistinen was off duty when his son arrived at the hospital and was “a father merely conveying his son’s wishes,” Spector said. “The only thing that a police officer could possibly say is that he communicated his son’s invocation of his constitutional rights.”
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