Shooting Victim Brings Lawsuit Against Town

By Andrew Gorosko

A Bethel nurse, who was seriously injured in March 2010 after he was shot three times by an elderly Brookfield man who was a patient in Danbury Hospital, has filed a lawsuit in seeking compensatory money damages from the Town of Newtown.

The nurse claims that Newtown police negligently violated their policies and procedures by not having searched the shooter for concealed weapons before sending him via ambulance to the hospital for treatment.

On February 27, the town clerk’s office received copies of the lawsuit in which Andrew Hull and his wife, Erica, are the plaintiffs and the Town of Newtown is the defendant. The court return date is March 20.

Stanley Lupienski, who was charged by Danbury police with shooting Hull, died in October, 2010, at age 86 in Hartford Hospital after having had a stroke while at Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown.

Following the March 2, 2010, shooting incident at Danbury Hospital, Danbury police charged Lupienski, then age 85, with first-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and illegal discharge of a firearm. Lupienski, however, was later deemed incompetent for trial because he had advanced dementia.

Investigators think that Lupienski smuggled a handgun into the hospital when he was admitted the day before the shooting, after he had been found disoriented in the Newtown Police Department parking lot.

According to the lawsuit, on March 1, 2010, the Newtown Police Department had policies and procedures in place that required officers to conduct a thorough search of the people whom they take into custody. State law authorizes police to take into custody certain individuals based on visible psychiatric disturbance, the lawsuit adds.

Shortly after midnight on March 1, 2010, police officer Steven Borges, as well as other officers, took a visibly psychiatrically disturbed Lupienski into custody and then had him transported to Danbury Hospital for examination, according to the lawsuit.

 “The officer took Lupienski into custody but did not search or even frisk him. Nor did any other officer at the scene do so,” according to the legal papers. “The officers’ failure to search Lupienski violated the mandatory, nondiscretionary requirement that ‘Officers shall conduct a thorough search of the person arrested,’” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit contends that “taking a person into custody” amounts to an “arrest,” based on the provisions of Newtown police policies and procedures.

Lupienski was carrying a loaded, concealed handgun on him that would have been discovered if any of the police had conducted a search of him as required by the police department’s policies and procedures, according to the lawsuit. Thus, Lupienski was able to enter the hospital with the loaded gun, it adds.

“The next day, Lupienski, armed with his loaded handgun went into a corridor at Danbury Hospital and pointed his weapon at two nurses…Andrew Hull was also working as a nurse at the hospital. The plaintiff is a Marine Corps veteran. Hearing that the patient was threatening others with a gun, he raced to the scene to attempt to save his coworkers,” the lawsuit adds.

Hull then called out to Lupienski to distract him, after which Lupienski aimed the gun at Hull, it adds. Hull then tackled Lupienski in seeking to wrestle away the gun, but Lupienski was able to shoot Hull three times at point blank range, severely wounding Hull before Lupienski was subdued by hospital security staff, it adds.

The lawsuit alleges that Hull’s injuries were caused by the failure of any Newtown police officer to follow police procedures requiring that Lupienski be searched for weapons when being taken into custody.

The legal papers allege that Hull received multiple and various permanent, painful, and disabling injuries in the shooting incident which have impaired his physical abilities. The legal papers add that Hull may be unable to perform the requirements of his vocation and that his earning capacity has been impaired.

 Due to the incident, Hull has incurred expenses for hospital, medical, and surgical care and will require such care at further expense in the future, according to the lawsuit.

Additionally, due to the incident, Erica Hull has lost the care, companionship and consortium of her husband, Andrew, the lawsuit adds.

Through the lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek compensatory damages from the town in an unspecified amount exceeding $15,000.

Asked to comment on the legal action, Police Chief Michael Kehoe said February 28, “We make no comments regarding pending lawsuits.”