30 YEAR POLICE VETERAN FUCKED BY WORKERS’ COMP

Connecticut Police Officer Shot in On-Duty Accident Denied Workers' Compensation

By Pat Tomlinson

The Norwalk Hour
September 21, 2018

NORWALK, Connecticut — Every time he moves, Phillip Roselle can feel the 9-mm bullet still lodged in the right side of his chest.

The 30-year veteran of the Norwalk Police Department has been dealing with that bullet, along with a host of other medical issues, since another officer accidentally shot him during a training session at a gun range in September 2017.

More than a year later, Roselle is not only out of work, he’s still fighting for his life.

Complications from the shooting have led to blood clots, a partial blockage of his heart and permanent nerve damage in his right hand. Recently, doctors told Roselle that he will also need a kidney transplant to survive.

“My life did a 360 that day,” Roselle said. “I still try to do the best I can, but as a man, I’m expected to be the bread winner, the father figure, the foundation of the family and all. I’m used to protecting and helping people. To turn around and have everyone needing to help me, it’s something that will take some time getting used to.”

After the shooting, Roselle knew he would have to fight to recover. What he didn’t see coming was a fight with the city he had sworn an oath to protect.

Roselle, 51, has twice been denied workers’ compensation. The Connecticut Workers’ Compensation Commission reasoned that an underlying health problem, Type 1 diabetes, is keeping him out of work. The family argues he was healthy until the shooting began his downward slide.

Friends and family blame Norwalk for the denial, saying it ultimately falls on the city to protect its first responders.

“For him to go to work one day and to have something like this happen, which you have no control over, it’s not only a financial setback, it’s also a mental setback,” said his wife, Debbie Roselle. “For Phillip to get better, he needs his mental state to be in a better place, and that feeling of abandonment, when you serve your city and you put your life on the line for 30 years, and they turn their back on you, it just hurts.”

City officials say the decision is in the hands of the commission. In June, the commission made its second determination that Roselle is being kept out of work by his underlying medical condition, not any shooting-related injuries, according to Ray Burney, the personnel director for the city.

Both the commission and the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency, a municipal insurance provider, declined to comment.

Roselle, who was diagnosed with diabetes 32 years ago, said the commission’s conclusion couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“I’ve always been diabetic, that’s never impeded my ability to be a police officer,” Roselle said. “For 30 years, I did everything that a police officer is required to do, and I did it to the fullest.”

Despite the setbacks, Roselle’s attorney, Matthew Paradisi of the Hartford-based firm Cicchiello & Cicchiello, said they will continue to fight for compensation, calling the grounds for the denial “untenable” and “unethical.”

“From our perspective, legally, Norwalk should be coming to the table and compensating him for these injuries. And the fact that his benefits were cut off, in my mind, is unconscionable,” Paradisi said.

Mayor Harry Rilling, a former Norwalk police chief and police union president, said the city had no role in the decision, adding that he recently reached out to the family to “figure out what options are available.”

“We need to do everything we can to protect our first responders,” Rilling said. “They put their lives on the line day in and day out, and we need to make sure that we’re here for them when they need us.”

The Roselle family confirmed that Rilling had reached out to them last week, but said there had been no progress with the case since.

Lt. Dave O’Connor, the president of the police union, said it is the union’s position that Roselle was injured at work, therefore he is entitled to workers’ compensation “until he is able to return to work.”

“We are concerned that he is not getting what he needs from workers’ comp, and we would like to see that resolved as quickly as possible,” O’Connor said. “He doesn’t have a paycheck coming in now, which is causing us great angst and it’s putting an enormous amount of strain on his family.”

‘In the line of duty’

The morning of Sept. 5, 2017, started the way most days had for Roselle. He woke up, put on his uniform and said goodbye to his family before setting off to work.

It a training day for Roselle and a handful of other officers. The first half of the day was consumed by briefings on the latest in use-of-force training and new policies and laws around the state. After a few hours of written and visual work, the officers went to the department’s gun range on the second floor of police headquarters for hands-on training. A few officers practiced shooting an AR-15, a lightweight semi-automatic rifle, while Roselle and others got acquainted with the department’s newly issued Glock 17 pistols.

The target shooting went off without incident. Then it was time to clean the weapons.

“I just remember I was cleaning my gun when I heard a ‘bang’ and I felt a pain in my chest and in my arm, and I looked down and there was blood everywhere,” Roselle said.

A round tore through his right arm and into his ribcage.

A police report said he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. One officer elevated Roselle’s head, placing it in his lap while another put a tourniquet on his arm.

From there things grew foggy for Roselle, but he said he remembers officers the officers rushing to his aid and being dashed to the hospital. Police frantically closed intersections on the route between police headquarters and Norwalk Hospital.

Roselle later learned that a superior officer was disassembling his department-issued pistol, a Glock 17, when the bullet was accidentally fired. According to police reports, the shooter thought he had cleared his gun’s chamber before pulling the trigger, which is required when disassembling a Glock.

Police Chief Tom Kulhawik said he would not comment on “personnel matters.”

Roselle declined to name the officer involved, saying he knew the officer was suffering his own trauma from the accident. The two are still friends.

“I know it was an accident, so there’s no hard feelings there,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re still brothers in blue.”

Roselle said has been dealing with post-traumatic stress and swings of depression. He’s been rushed to the emergency room several times since his initial hospitalization.

Between the emergency room visits, dialysis three times a week for four hours, and various other doctor visits, his family said the bills are piling up. Roselle has had to discontinue the physical therapy required to strengthen his right hand.

While Roselle said he has not felt the full support of City Hall, the same cannot be said of the Norwalk Police Department, where he’s served since he was 19 years old. Roselle said his brothers and sisters at the Norwalk Police Department have been among the most supportive in his time of need.

Officer Kelly Hollister, for instance, started a GoFundMe account in August. The fundraiser page, an effort to ensure that Roselle and his family didn’t need to worry about money, had raised $16,308 of its $20,000 goal as of Tuesday afternoon.

“My other family, the ones that I worked in the street with, have been great with helping me out. The moral support I’ve received from them — it means a lot,” he said.

Roselle, whose son is a cop in New Haven, said his fight against the city and their insurer is not only for his own benefit, but for any other officers who finds themselves in a similar situation.

“I want to make sure that this never happens again, and if it does, then I want to make sure that the procedures that the city takes in protecting police officers will be a lot better than it has been for me,” Roselle said. “We [officers] take this job to serve and protect the city, and all we ask back for it is a little respect back from the city.”