Question of Hiring an Independent Investigator Goes to Town Meeting

The Windsor Locks Board of Selectmen Tuesday scheduled a January 4 town meeting for voters to decide whether to spend up to $30,000 on an investigation of how police and other officials acted following an October 30 fatal car accident.

Fifteen-year-old Henry Dang was killed when he was hit by a car driven by an off-duty Windsor Locks police officer, who state police charge was drinking for several hours before the accident.

Former Windsor Locks police officer Michael Koistinen, 24, of Suffield, is charged with first-degree manslaughter, second-degree manslaughter, negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, misconduct with a motor vehicle, and attempt to tamper with evidence. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on November 23 in Hartford Superior Court. His next court date is January 7.

The Windsor Locks Police Commission fired Koistinen, a probationary officer, on December 8. At the same meeting, the commission approved hiring an attorney to investigate how the policies, procedures and protocol of the department and the town were followed after the accident.

Attorney Frank Rudiewicz, a former Hartford police commander, has run investigations of several police departments in the state, Kevin Deneen, the town's labor attorney, said at the meeting.

First Selectman Steven N. Wawruck Jr. said Tuesday the $30,000 will hopefully be enough to cover the investigation. A town meeting is required for any expenditure more than $10,000. If the cost of the investigation exceeds $30,000 another town meeting will be required for approval.

Wawruck said the investigation will work differently than a criminal investigation because employees can be compelled to testify or face disciplinary action. In a criminal investigation people have a constitutional right to not be forced to testify and possibly incriminate themselves.

Wawruck said he thinks approving the investigation is a move in the right direction. The investigation should answer questions that officials and people in the community at large have about what police department members and others did or didn't do that night, he said.

"I think it's very important to move forward with this investigation," Wawruck said.

Selectman Joseph Calsetta said he hopes that the investigation will answer all of the questions people have about what everyone did on October 30.

"Will it?," Calsetta said. "I don't know."

The town meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. January 4 in Windsor Locks Town Hall, 50 Church St.
In an arrest warrant affidavit, state police said that through evidence and video they determined that Michael Koistinen had spent the evening of October 29 consuming numerous alcoholic beverages at the University of Connecticut football game in East Hartford and then in the Suffield Tavern in Suffield.

Koistinen was traveling at least 73 miles an hour when he struck Dang as he rode his bicycle on Spring Street near West Street, the warrant said. The speed limit on the street is 35 miles per hour.