Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Connecticut’s ‘P.J. case’ won’t go to Supreme Court

By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
Investigations Editor

The litigation that pushed for intellectually disabled students to spend more time with their non-disabled peers in schools statewide is over.
The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit known as the “P.J. case” have decided against taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, said attorney David Shaw of Bloomfield, who represented “P.J.,” or Patrick Jordan of West Hartford, and the other plaintiffs.
“A lot of it is due to the expense,” Shaw said. “It is expensive for parents to try to fight a case like this.”
The P.J. plaintiffs had claimed the state wasn’t doing enough to meet the five goals for intellectually disabled students that both sides agreed upon when the parties reached a settlement, which was approved in 2002.
In December 2013, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the decision of U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny.
The only remaining legal remedy for the plaintiffs would have been to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Saturday, July 19, 2014

Smolinskis frustrated by delay in search for son’s body at Beacon Falls site

By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
Investigations Editor

It has been more than 10 weeks since two dogs trained to detect cadavers alerted searchers to a location of interest in the case of missing Waterbury man William “Billy” Smolinski Jr.
However, police have not yet done a search of the property, public land in Beacon Falls, to see if Smolinski’s remains are there.
Smolinski’s family members, who have been waiting almost a decade for his body to be found, said this week the delay is “frustrating.”

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Connecticut cops have no hang-ups about issuing tickets for cellphone use

Driving while texting (photo illustration). Catherine Avalone — The Middletown Press


By Viktoria Sundqvist
Middletown Press
More than 32,000 tickets for driving while using a cellphone were issued across Connecticut in 2013, generating more than $2 million in revenue for the state. The violation represented about 8 percent of the 414,837 total traffic tickets written last year.
Connecticut has about 2.5 million active driver’s licenses, so cellphone infractions were issued on average to about 1 in 77 drivers in 2013.
An analysis of the 16,000 tickets issued by local police departments (the rest were issued by state police or departments that did not provide information), using data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, shows that enforcement can differ wildly from town to town, and time of year. Men are ticketed slightly more than women, and the racial breakdown of tickets closely matches Connecticut’s statewide Census demographics, with 84.6 percent going to white drivers compared to a state population that is 84 percent white.
The majority of distracted driving tickets were issued in spring and summer, according to the data collected from each individual department.

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Family of slain Shelton teen Kristjan Ndoj still without answers in shooting


By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo
and Patricia Villers
SHELTON >> Franga Ndoj, whose grandson Kristjan was fatally shot in March, took a framed color photograph of him down from a shelf in the home they shared and kissed it, with tears in her eyes.
“I’m not doing well; the past few months have been hard,” she said. “I think they know who did it, but they aren’t saying anything. It would be better if they knew what actually happened.”
She remembered how Kristjan would leave for school and give her hugs and kisses, then do it again when he returned.
“He was my life,” she said, speaking in Albanian.
After almost four months with no arrest in the fatal shooting of the popular Shelton High School sophomore, his grieving loved ones are frustrated and hoping anyone with information will come forward and tell police.

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ICYMI: 25 years later, family reflects on death caused by drunk driver and new, tougher laws

By Isaac Avilucea
The Register Citizen 
TORRINGTON >> Twenty-five years later, pain has given way to forgiveness, but sisters Susan Suhanovsky and Honoria Williams still haven’t forgotten the day their father, Herman Marine, died in a horrific two-car accident in Torrington.
About 5 feet 11 inches tall with salt-and-pepper hair, an imposing beard and “smiling eyes,” Marine was set to retire from the Burrville Fire Department July 1 and had purchased a home with his wife, Margaret, in Venice, Florida, in the same retirement community as the couple’s friends, when he was killed by a drunk driver on June 21, 1989.

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