By Ivan H. Golden, Greenwich Time (Greenwich, Conn.)
STAMFORD -- Another policing expert testified yesterday in state Superior Court that Greenwich police were “grossly negligent” in their handling of events leading up to the murder of John Peters in August 1993.
Reginald F. Allard Jr., a training officer at the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden, testified that proper police work likely would have prevented Peters’ murder.
“But for (the police department’s) failure to act,” he testified, “John Peters would not have been shot in the head on August 5, 1993.”
Peters was shot to death in his backyard swimming pool by Andrew Wilson, a one-time family friend with a history of mental illness. Wilson, who had been harassing Peters and his family for months prior to the murder, pleaded guilty to the crime and is serving a 30-year prison term.
Peters’ widow, Katrina Peters, filed suit in 1995, accusing the town of Greenwich, former First Selectman John Margenot, former Police Chief Kenneth Moughty, former Sgt. John Campbell and Detective Roger Wachnicki, who is still with the Greenwich police, of negligence in her husband’s death.
The lawsuit charges that Greenwich police and town officials were aware of Wilson’s harassment, but did nothing to stop it or warn the Peters family.
Allard’s testimony echoed that of Lou Reiter, a policing consultant and former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, who testified Tuesday that Greenwich police were negligent in the case.
Allard testified under questioning from Peters attorney David Golub that Greenwich police made a critical error in late July 1993 when they received a fax from Wilson’s sister, Julia Wilson.
The fax stated that Andrew Wilson was mentally ill and had made threats against Peters and his son, Dirk. But those threats were never investigated or communicated to the Peters family, the family’s lawsuit contends.
Around the same time, records in the case indicate, Andrew Wilson purchased a gun.
“When a police officer doesn’t tell me about the threats and the purchase of the gun, my mind is not at the same threat level as the police officer,” Allard testified.
During her cross-examination of Allard, defense attorney Garie Mulcahey questioned whether any of Wilson’s actions before the murder constituted a felony or a threat of imminent harm to the Peters, and she suggested there was little police could have done to prevent the murder.
Allard conceded that none of the individual pieces of evidence amounted to an imminent threat of harm. But, he said, “the totality of the facts” should have compelled police to act more aggressively.
Mulcahey also suggested, as she did a day earlier in her cross-examination of Reiter, that Allard was simply an expert for hire. She noted that Allard charges $1,000 to review cases, plus $150 per hour for depositions and courtroom appearances, and she told the jury that Allard had charged her to take his deposition.
“Yes, and you still have an outstanding balance,” Allard said, drawing laughter from jurors and others in the courtroom.
Yesterday’s proceedings also included testimony from LeGrande Young, a Greenwich resident and close friend of John Peters.
The two men met while living in Riverside nearly 30 years ago, Young said, and, because they had children around the same age, quickly became friends. The two coached a Little League baseball team together when their sons were around 8 years old, Young testified.
"(Peters) loved kids,” he recalled. “He was never one of these coaches to yell at the kids.”
Peters’ character may affect the amount of the award, should jurors decide that the town of Greenwich was negligent and contributed to his death.
Lawyers for the Peters family expect to conclude their case today or tomorrow.