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Assistant Chief of Police Roy Brown says he’s “not a past-looking guy,” and he won’t review past complaints against officers.

You black, fat bitch," New Haven police officer Dennis O'Connell allegedly said to a city resident. Another filed a complaint claiming that O'Connell head-butted him. A third said O'Connell slammed him into a truck, threw him on the ground, handcuffed him, kneed him in the back and called him a "mutha fucker" while loading him into an ambulance.

O'Connell, who was hit with a $10 million lawsuit last month claiming police brutality, has more than a dozen civilian complaints against him since 2003 alleging physical and verbal abuse, according to his personnel records.

Identifying officers like O'Connell who have multiple complaints may be easier next year when the NHPD plans to buy a $25,000 Internal Affairs software program. The software would help the department be pro-active in finding "at risk" officers. All the necessary information is currently available to identify those officers, but Assistant Chief Roy Brown, who oversees Internal Affairs, says he doesn't want to review past complaints.

"I'm not a past-looking guy. I'm looking to the future," he says. "We're looking at creating new policies and making sure the complaints get investigated."

If Brown did review O'Connell's complaints, here's what he'd find: O'Connell has nine closed complaints (and at least four ongoing investigations). Seven were never investigated — one was filed a year late and six were determined "non-pursuit" after investigators were unable to follow up with the complainants.

Of the two remaining, one was dismissed because of a discrepancy between the complainant and a witness: The complainant said he was beaten first and handcuffed later but the witness recalled the inverse.

In the most recent investigation — community activist Barbara Fair's nephew Dramese Fair says O'Connell did an anal probe of him — police concluded O'Connell did an illegal strip search but he was never disciplined.

The $10 million lawsuit against O'Connell stems from other, unresolved complaints.

Internal Affairs "is a really bad system if you're trying to find officers who are doing wrong," says attorney Paul Garlinghouse, whose four clients claim O'Connell abused them. "[O'Connell's] been complained about enough to know that nothing is going to happen to him." According to investigation files, O'Connell has never been disciplined.

Garlinghouse's clients — Abel Sanchez, Gustavo Morales, Lamar Morrison, Jonathan Avila and his parents — claim the city knew O'Connell was a bad apple and should have intervened with training or discipline to prevent him from causing harm.

Morales, who was charged with drug possession, claims to have lost consciousness from O'Connell punching him while he was handcuffed.

Friends Avila and Morrison allege they were approached by O'Connell who asked if they were carrying guns; Morrison says O'Connell punched him, handcuffed him and put him in the car where Morrison says he was punched again and maced. Then O'Connell allegedly entered Avila's home. Avila says he was head-butted and thrown into a sink and a china cabinet. His mother says she was shoved and maced. (Avila was charged with breach of peace.)

Sanchez says O'Connell punched, kicked and maced him after he was handcuffed. He says he'd gone to help his brother-in-law jump-start his car when they were approached by O'Connell. (Sanchez was charged with creating a public disturbance, a misdemeanor.)

The Police Executive Research Forum agrees that New Haven needs to improve its Internal Affairs department. PERF was hired to review and analyze the police department after the 2007 narcotics scandal and nearly half of their report's 57 directives have been completed. Most suggestions for turning around Internal Affairs have yet to be done. (Police Chief James Lewis says they'll all be done by the time he retires in 2010.)

"Things are improving," says Shirley Wayne-Washington, a member of the Civilian Review Board, which oversees the investigations of civilian complaints. The recent investigations she's seen are more thorough, better documented and taken more seriously, she says.

Still, she says, "Nine complaints? Nine's a lot. If someone has nine complaints, I would be asking, 'Why is this?'"

byagla@newhavenadvocate.com