CT Legislators Horrified by Account of Incarcerated Person’s Homicide

by Mark Pazniokas, February 14, CT Mirror

The death of Carl “Robby” Talbot in a jail cell thick with the choking fumes of a potent pepper spray was described Friday as the catastrophic consequence of excessive force and medical neglect, compounded by a forged use-of-force report and an ineffectual internal investigation.

Angel Quiros, the commissioner of correction, did not protest the lawmakers’ harsh assessment. Talbot’s mother, Colleen Lord, offered one dissent: Her son’s death also is a consequence of the criminalization of the mentally ill, a failure that began outside jailhouse walls, long before her Robby died.

The first public dissection of all that went wrong at the New Haven Correctional Center on March 21, 2019, came Friday in a Judiciary Committee hearing on whether to accept a proposed $3.75 million settlement of the federal lawsuit filed by Talbot’s estate.

Undisputed is that Talbot, 30, who had a history of mental illness and misdemeanor arrests, had become agitated after being jailed on a probation violation, and that a jailhouse supervisor, Lt. Carlos Padro, responded with four long point-blank bursts of pepper spray, twice in a shower room and again in an elevator and a cell.

Read the whole story here: https://ctmirror.org/2025/02/14/ct-inmate-death-hearing