SHELTON, Conn. — Three Shelton police officers were fired this week for what the Chief says was a dereliction of duty and a cover-up in a case involving a sexual assault.
Officers John Napoleone and Michael McLain were terminated for failing to properly investigate a domestic violence complaint in June of 2019, which allegedly resulted in a woman being sexually assaulted by then Bridgeport police officer, Steven Figueroa, who has a disturbing history.
"He was arrested multiple times for violation of a protective order," said Shelton Police Chief Shawn Sequeira. "And he was arrested for domestic violence."
Figueroa had actually been arrested four previous times for domestic violence.
On that June morning, a Shelton 911 caller said she heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs in an apartment above her, which was Figueroa‘s apartment. Napoleone and McLain responded, but the Chief says they made numerous mistakes.
First, he said, if the officers paid attention to the owner or tenant of the address they were being sent to, they would have had Figueroa's criminal history right in front of them. Sequeira also says the officers failed to announce themselves as officers when they knocked on the door. And, they never interviewed the 911 caller.
"That is a completely false narrative," said Barbara Resnick, the lawyer for the Shelton Police Union. "That that is not what transpired whatsoever."
Sequeira says the officers admitted in their reports to having heard something coming from the apartment.
"They turned around and cleared it as it was a possible television show," Sequeira said. "They weren’t forthcoming."
"It will be revealed that, what has been presented, by this chief, does not mirror the facts whatsoever," said Resnick.
And, from text messages, which surfaced during an Internal Affairs investigation, the Chief says the officers joked about hearing noises from the apartment likely being from sex acts being performed.
"Immediately after they left the scene, the victim reported that she could hear them and that she was sexually assaulted immediately after that," Sequeira said.
"We will litigate this and we will show that there was no misconduct on the part of the officers," said Resnick.
Lt. Dave Moore, who was one of the three fired, conducted the department's IA investigation.
"We listened to audiotapes and we realized that there was information being documented in the report that wasn’t stated in the interview," said Sequeira.
Napoleone was the Union President before being fired. Sequeira noted that Moore became the Union's Vice President after completing the IA investigation.
Early this month, Sequeira came under fire for allegedly locking the officers' locker rooms, due to COVID, and forcing them to change at home or outside in portable bathrooms. The Chief denies he ordered such a thing and says there will be more news on this front in the next week or so.