By Josh LaBella
New Haven Register, Conn.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A former city police officer has been charged for fatally shooting Steven Jones on Blue Hills Avenue in February after an investigation found it not to be legally justified, officials say.
In a release, state Inspector General Eliot Prescott said Joseph Magnano was charged with first-degree manslaughter. He said Magnano was released on a $50,000 bond pending arraignment in the state Superior Court in Hartford on June 5.
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In an arrest warrant, Prescott said the shooting was not justified and that Magnano acted recklessly and caused the death of Jones.
Magnano was widely criticized for not following the lead of the other officers who, for the most part, kept their guns down and calmly tried to get Jones to drop his knife, body camera videos show.
WARNING: Hartford Police Officer Joseph Magnano’s body camera video contains graphic content and language that may be disturbing or offensive to some viewers
When Magnano got to the scene five minutes after the first officer’s arrival, he yelled for Jones to drop the knife while walking toward Jones, with his gun pointed at the man, who appeared to say nothing the entire time, according to a preliminary report by the inspector general and body-camera video.
Jones then turned and took about 24 steps toward Magnano, who walked backward to put space between them before firing nine times, the video showed.
In his termination letter, Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said the firing “is expressly not for disciplinary purposes or for misconduct and I offer no opinion in that regard.”
Rather, the letter said, it’s because “PPO Magnano did not demonstrate the requisite skills to effectively operation within a team, which is necessary for City of Hartford employees.”
Hartford Police Union President James Rutkauski, who has previously defended Magnano, said in a brief interview Monday that he was disappointed by the decision to make an arrest in the fatal shooting.
Rutkauski argued that Jones presented an imminent threat to Magnano by walking toward him with a knife, making the use of force justified. He predicted the officer will be ultimately be cleared of any wrongdoing.
“People look at the warrant and they see it as a verdict,” Rutkauski said. “But it’s not a verdict. An arrest doesn’t make the officer guilty.”
In March, Rutkauski said that the union “fully supports” Magnano and that officers shouldn’t be at the forefront of incidents that require the response of mental health professionals. In April, the union filed more than a half-dozen grievances against the city for his firing and requested his reinstatement.
In the arrest warrant, Prescott noted that Magnano never tried to deescalate the confrontation with Jones, nor did he try to use the pepper spray he carried.
“Just prior to Magnano’s arrival, Jones had been acting less aggressively, was swaying back and forth and, at times, was only loosely gripping the knife,” the warrant said.
Magnano was only at the scene for 34 seconds before firing his gun at Jones nine times, the warrant said, adding he was only engaged with Jones for 26 seconds before shooting. The other officers had been on the scene for between five minutes and five seconds and two minutes and 36 seconds and had not concluded that they needed to shoot Jones, Prescott wrote in the warrant.
“Magnano did not seek cover from any threat posed by Jones even though there were two police vehicles behind which he could have sought protection,” the warrant said. “Magnano did not attempt to use any non-lethal force against Jones.”
The warrant also said Magnano made no attempt to move bystanders out of the way, and he himself had ample space to walk backwards and maintain distance from Jones. It said Jones was shot at least six times and had seven penetrating gunshot wounds, but at least four of the shots were fired after he had already fallen onto the ground. Several of the gunshot entrance wounds were located on Jones’ buttocks and back, it said.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances. Officer Magnano’s actions were not objectively reasonable because, among other things, he did not engage in de-escalation measures, he failed to make reasonable attempts to use non-lethal force, and his conduct increased the risk of the occurrence of the situation that precipitated the need to use deadly physical force,” it said.
Even if Magnano believed use of deadly force was reasonable to prevent him or others from the imminent use of deadly physical force by Jones, the warrant said, that belief was not objectively reasonable.
The warrant said Magnano should be charged because he recklessly engaged in conduct that created a grave risk of death to Jones, and thereby caused his death, as well as because the shooting was not legally justified.
Ben Crump, a nationally known civil rights attorney representing Jones’s family, said in a statement on Monday that Magnano being charged is “a necessary and meaningful step toward accountability for Stevie Jones and his family.”
“Stevie was in the middle of a mental health crisis, and instead of receiving the care he needed, he was shot nine times,” Crump said, though Prescott’s report noted only seven gunshot wounds. “This charge reflects what the family has known all along, that what happened to Stevie was not justified.”
Crump said accountability does not end with one charge, adding he will “continue to push for the Steven Jones Law, because his death must mean something beyond this courtroom.”
“No family should ever have to bury a loved one because the systems meant to help them failed them so completely,” he said. “We will not rest until his legacy produces real, lasting change.”
Rev. Cornell Lewis of the Self-Defense Brigade, who led one of several protests in the capital city over the deadly shooting, said Magnano should have faced even more serious charges.
“The activists who want justice for this need to keep up the pressure on the mayor, the governor and the public officials because, just because this man’s charged with manslaughter doesn’t mean he’ll be convicted,” he said. “I’m saying that, pressure, as my grandfather would say, will bust the pipe. Once people turn away from an issue, things can be done when you’re not looking.”
Magnano is the first police officer arrested as the result of an investigation by the Office of Inspector General since Connecticut State Trooper Brian North was charged for fatally shooting Mubarak Soulemane in West Haven in 2020. North was acquitted of the first-degree manslaughter charge in 2024.
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