BRIDGEPORT -- A former New Haven police officer has been identified as the city's third homicide.
Kenneth Console, 42, was discovered on Bond Street early Thursday morning. Residents reported hearing gunshots about 3 a.m. Ninety minutes later, police received a call about an unresponsive person on Bond Street, near the old General Electric building off Boston Avenue.
A puddle of blood was found near Console's head. EMTs pronounced him dead on the scene around 4:35 a.m. Neighbors said the body remained uncovered for hours for all to see, including children as they walked to school.
Around 10 a.m., the top half of Console's body was hidden under a large black box, but his jeans and sneakers could still be seen poking out. Police rolled the body onto its side and wrapped it in a large white blanket. It was then placed in a burgundy body bag, lifted onto a stretcher and rolled into a police van.
Bridgeport Police Captain James Viadero said the department sees no connection between this homicide and any prior homicides. He said that five investigators are working the case.
New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman, who was brought in to the department six weeks ago, would only say that Console was an officer "long before my time and he wasn't here very long."
The New Haven Independent reported Console entered the New Haven police academy on Jan. 24, 1992. He resigned on April 30, 2003, "taking advantage of the "Early Incentive Buy Out."
Console's stepfather, Jim Carlson, said "we are devastated and that's all we have to say." Before hanging up the phone, Carlson said Console was "well known" in Bridgeport.
According to state Judicial Department records, Console had a history of arrests and convictions, most related to his work as a carpenter. The Secretary of the State's office lists Console as the owner of Console Home Improvement LLC, formerly called Milford Home Improvement LLC. The company was first registered in 2001 and has a mailing address in Shelton. The filing gave an address on Meadow Park Drive in Milford as Console's residential address.
Console was arrested on Jan. 12, 2006 by Milford police on two misdemeanor charges of violating home improvement contract regulations for which he pleaded no contest and was found guilty, according to records. He was sentenced to six months in jail which was suspended to five years probation.
Milford police arrested Console on April 28, 2007 for third-degree larceny to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in jail suspended to three years probation. Court records also show Console was found guilty of third-degree larceny in August 2007. On Feb. 26, 2009, he was convicted of violating his probation by not paying restitution to the homeowner. As a result of that conviction he was sentenced to three months in jail. On May 21, 2009, he was found in violation of both probations for not making restitution payments. It is uncertain what sentence was imposed.
John Robert Gulash, a Bridgeport lawyer, represented Console at the Golden Hill Street courthouse in 2007. There Console pleaded guilty to second degree larceny and violating the state's home improvement contract regulations for which he received a five-year sentence suspended to five years probation.
"My only contact with him was in connection with that case," said Gulash, who has represented numerous law enforcement officers charged with crimes. "I haven't had any contact with him since."
Residents questioned why it took several hours to cover and remove the body from the scene.
But Michael Clark, a retired FBI agent who now teaches criminal justice at the University of New Haven, said the police acted properly in not covering the body. "The worst thing to do would be to cover the body with anything until the forensic people came in and did their job," said Clark. "What they did was absolutely the right thing."
Clark said the mere factor of tossing a blanket over the body could have introduced new trace evidence to the scene. "Think about what's been in the trunk of your car," he said. "What you grabbed a blanket from the trunk and it had a dog hair on it? A case like this could rest on a single hair or body fluid."
Such simple acts could give defense lawyers a field day in court.
That's what happened with an upstate murder in which an officer tossed a blanket over a body found in a public park. "It destroyed the case," Clark said.
Clark said police or school security could have cordoned off the area, imposed a road block or re-routed walking students to a street away from the body.
H. Wayne Carver II, the state's chief medical examiner, said his office was not the reason the body remained uncovered for several hours. "The decision to cover a body rests with the police department not us," said Carver. "We often arrive at a scene to find a body already covered."
Carver said his office got the call around 8 a.m. and quickly diverted an investigator, who was in the area, to the scene. While there, the examiner spoke to investigators on the scene and took photographs.
The examiner then called the office to pick up the body. Carver said a team of two technicians was dispatched from Farmington around 9 a.m. to bring the body back for Friday morning autopsy.
"They left the scene with the body at 10:05 a.m.," Carver said.
The homicide is the third this year and the fifth in a month. On Jan. 8, 14-year-old Barnum School student Justin Thompson was shot and killed on Seaview Avenue by two men, who have not been identified. Early on New Year's Day, Greg Thomas, 26, was killed outside his home on Howard Avenue.
