By Tobin A. Coleman
Staff Writer
January 24, 2006
STAMFORD -- Police and fire officials, not the woman whose 2-year-old son was locked in a car at Bull's Head on a hot July day, should take the blame for any delay or difficulties extracting him, her attorney said yesterday.
Matthew Maddox of New Canaan said his client, Guita Sazan Silverstein, should not have been arrested after the July 25 incident in the parking lot of Home Goods at 29 High Ridge Road. Silverstein, 42, was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor.
The boy was not seriously hurt.
Police and fire officials have said Silverstein did not want firefighters to break the window of her 1999 Audi to extract her son, telling them she would drive to her home at 128 Fieldstone Road, 1.5 miles away, to get a spare key.
The incident gained national attention.
"What this is about is a panicked mother calling 911, then being blamed for an inadequate and failed 911 response," Maddox said. "I think someone early on, within moments of the 911 call, someone arbitrarily decided this would be a class-ist story about someone worried about an Audi's glass before her son's health. It's outrageous."
Maddox filed notice last week with the Stamford city clerk that Silverstein intends to sue the police department and the Turn of River Fire Department.
He said statements by members of the departments to the media defamed Silverstein, whom police originally identified as Susan Guita Silverstein.
Maddox said his client "was wrongfully restrained, falsely imprisoned, civilly assaulted and battered and deprived of her rights under the Constitution," according to a notice of claim dated Jan. 18 and received by the clerk's office Friday.
Director of Legal Affairs Thomas Cassone said he will investigate.
"It's a serious charge when you're charging the people who respond to save your child who you've locked in the car, that they've basically lied about her," Cassone said yesterday. "I take the claim very seriously, but at this point we haven't fully investigated it, beause we didn't expect to get a claim on it."
Turn of River Fire Chief Ray Whitbread said he was served with a notice of the lawsuit.
"I certainly would believe our men acted properly," Whitbread said. "I have no question about that. But I'd rather not get into detail about making any statement about the incident."
It was 88 degrees at 1:03 p.m. July 25, when a man called 911 from the Home Goods parking lot and said a woman was frantic because she locked her child in her car.
Police recordings of the call indicate Silverstein said that if the dispatcher sent police to watch her child, she could go home and get another key.
The dispatcher told Silverstein that firefighters would break into the car, but Silverstein said she didn't want them to break the window.
"Would you rather your child died?" the dispatcher asked.
Silverstein replied that her house is two minutes away.
"Don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous, ma'am," the dispatcher said. "The fire department is going to come. They will get your child out."
After attempts to unlock the car failed, firefighters told Silverstein they would have to break the window, Whitbread said after the incident. Silverstein insisted she would go home, he said.
"We specifically told her not to leave the scene," Whitbread said in August. "She was saying she wanted to go home. We told her if she left the scene, we were going to have her arrested."
Silverstein borrowed a vehicle from someone in the parking lot and drove home to get the spare keys, authorities said.
By that time, firefighters called for police assistance and decided to break the window, Whitbread said. It was a coincidence that police arrived when they broke the window, he said.
"They didn't have to instruct us to break the window," he said. "We can do that on our own."
Silverstein was arrested when she returned to the parking lot.
The child was put in an ambulance and taken to Stamford Hospital, where he was treated and released. According to police, the child was in the car for 15 to 20 minutes before the window was broken. Police have said the child was unresponsive when he was taken from the vehicle.
Whitbread, who was not at the scene, said he spoke to firefighters who reported the child was listless but conscious.
Silverstein's husband issued a statement the next day saying his wife tried to prevent firefighters from breaking the window because she feared the shattered glass would injure the child.
Maddox yesterday said his investigators found the rear passenger compartment, where the child was seated, was covered with glass.
"If it's done properly, the glass is taped. There's no flying glass. But even that was not done correctly," Maddox said. "My client is grateful that her son is healthy and that he suffered no harm despite what could have been a catastrophically failed rescue attempt.
"I think that my client did what any rational parent would do under the circumstances, which is call 911. After that, what supposedly professional experts did to respond is out of her hands. What ultimately happened here is that I think my client has been blamed for a mismanaged incident scene."
Silverstein awaits trial but no court date has been set, Maddox said.
Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.