Another one of the students arrested during the Oct. 2 Elevate raid had his case unequivocally dismissed on Friday.
Zachary Fuhrer ’11, who was charged with one count of interfering with a police officer, was cleared of all blame by a New Haven court Friday morning. This ruling comes one week after the New Haven Police Department released its Internal Affairs investigation of the Oct. 2 incident, which admonished the department for poor planning and inadequate protocol. (Fuhrer is a former Arts and Living editor for the News.)
“I feel like I’m regaining a position of power,” Fuhrer said. “The need to constantly defend myself for something I haven’t done for five months is now over. But it is frustrating that three of the [Elevate-related] cases are still pending.”
The cases of three more men who were arrested that evening are still pending, but Alfredo Molinas ’11, who was charged with disorderly conduct, had his case was dismissed on Jan. 18.
Steven Winter ’11 and Seth Bannon, a Harvard senior who was living in New Haven working on a campaign finance software start-up with Winter and other Yale students, were each charged with one count of disorderly conduct and one count of criminal trespass in the third degree.
The Bannon and Winter cases were continued to Apr. 5, said Hugh Keefe, the New Haven attorney representing Bannon, Winter, Molinas and Fuhrer.
“Hopefully, like Mr. Fuhrer and Mr. Molinas before them, [the Bannon and Winter] cases will similarly be dismissed,” Keefe said. “They certainly should be because none of these students did anything wrong.”
Jordan Jefferson ’13, the other student arrested that night, was charged with three felony counts of assault against an officer. Jefferson was tasered repeatedly by NHPD officers before being arrested during the raid, but the recently-released IA report declared that the use of a taser was warranted.
The IA report compiled 25 student complaints and 22 officer statements.
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