Author Archives: Colin Ross

A state commission has ruled that the Yale Police Department is not legally required to disclose how much its top officials are paid. The Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) last month ruled 3–1 that even though the YPD is a public agency, its officers’ salaries are funded by Yale, a private institution, and therefore »

A malfunction in a West Campus building Tuesday afternoon sent tens of thousands of gallons of foam and water spewing into a nearby river, killing some local wildlife but leaving no lasting damage. The released foam, originally intended as a fire retardant, was automatically deployed when a pipe burst and set off the fire-protection system »

Three Yale students were mugged Saturday evening in two separate robberies, one of them at gunpoint. Shortly after both crimes, Yale and New Haven police arrived at the scenes, identified the suspects nearby, and apprehended three men they believe to be responsible for the muggings, Assistant Chief Ronnell Higgins wrote in an e-mail. The pair »

New Haven Police have made arrests in three murders this summer, but at 16, there have been more murders in New Haven this year than in 2009. The most recent murder occurred Aug. 14. Police found the victim, Javier Cosme, 21, of Bridgeport, dead from a gunshot wound in a parking lot near the Gotham »

Yale Police twice this summer searched the Woodbridge, Conn., home of former Yale genome researcher Lars Branden, who is suspected of filching laboratory equipment from the University. Officers seized three boxes of equipment, valued at $22,000, which Branden allegedly stole from the University, but have not charged him with any crime. Branden told the New »

As Yonglu Che ’13 continues to recover from his injuries, Yale and the state police are investigating last Sunday’s accident, when Che was struck by a Yale Police cruiser. Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said troopers and technicians of the state’s Accident Reconstruction Unit are leading the inquiry. Officials said they could not estimate »

A Yale scientist is under suspicion of stealing laboratory equipment, and police have searched his house for evidence. The suspect is Lars Branden, until recently the director of the Yale Center for High Throughput Cell Biology, who started working at the University’s West Campus in 2008. Yale Police searched Branden’s house in Woodbridge, Conn., on »

New Haven police arrested their first murder suspect of the year last week but saw much of that progress evaporate as a wave of eight shooting incidents has swept across the city since, leaving one dead. That murder, the city’s 12th this year, brings the number of unsolved homicides back up to 11. Around 2 »

Lishan Wang, 44, the man charged with the murder of School of Medicine postdoctoral clinical fellow Vajinder Toor, 34, admitted he was at the crime scene moments before Toor was shot and said he was sorry for what had happened, according to a police report. Wang’s admissions do not amount to a confession, but they »

Ammunition, three handguns, eyewitness testimony and a picture of the alleged victim were among the pieces of evidence prosecutors presented Tuesday at the arraignment of the sole suspect in the murder of School of Medicine postdoctoral clinical fellow Vajinder Toor, 34. Lishan Wang, 44, the suspect charged in Toor’s murder, was arrested Monday morning, minutes »

The man suspected in the murder of School of Medicine postdoctoral clinical fellow Vajinder Toor, 34, had Google map directions to Toor’s Branford, Conn., home, as well as a picture of Toor in his van when he was arrested Monday, according to an assistant state’s attorney who spoke at the suspect’s arraignment Tuesday. Just after »

The controversial U.S. Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano is one step closer to final resolution. Six months after a black New Haven firefighter charged the city with discrimination in a separate lawsuit, a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed the suit, which city officials had said was complicating Ricci v. DeStefano’s final resolution. “The decision »