OLD SAYBROOK — Moments after crashing his truck one November 2019 night on Interstate 95 in Old Saybrook, Edward Riccio walked toward a police cruiser pulled over a short distance away alongside the busy highway.

An officer spotted Riccio, jogged toward him and immediately gave a warning: "Get on the ground [or] you'll be bit," the officer shouted as he approached with a barking police dog, body camera footage recently obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media Group shows.

Police reports and legal filings indicate responding officers may have believed Riccio was intoxicated and had "fled" from the single-vehicle crash site after talking with paramedics.

The video shows the officer shouted commands for Riccio to get on the ground and turn around more than a dozen times, warning the dog would bite him if he didn't comply. Instead, Riccio is heard talking over the officer, trying to explain his situation and asking for help.

Then Riccio, who was unarmed, turned his back and took a few slow steps away from the officer, who gave the dog an order: "get him."

In the blink of an eye, the dog was on Riccio, sinking its teeth into his upper thigh.

The incident left him hospitalized with bite wounds to his left leg, according to the department's resulting use of force report.

It is now also the subject of a lawsuit, the second one filed against Old Saybrook involving ex-officer Tyler Schulz's use of his dog.

In the first case, the town agreed to a $145,000 settlement to resolve a lawsuit by a woman who alleged she was bitten by Schulz's police dog while another officer already had her pinned to the ground in an incident just two months prior to Riccio's. The woman suffered puncture wounds to her left thigh and scarring, according to the lawsuit.

In both cases, Old Saybrook denied wrongdoing in legal filings.

In Riccio's case, which was filed in federal court in June 2021 and remains pending, the town claimed in court records he was intoxicated during his encounter with Schulz.

Schulz justified the use of force in an agency report, writing that Riccio spoke with slurred speech, was unsteady on his feet and ran toward the vehicular travel lane of I-95, putting himself and others at risk.

But a report by state police, which also responded to the crash, says Riccio was not tested for drugs or alcohol. He did not face charges pertaining to alcohol use or leaving the scene of a crash, and his lawyers vehemently deny he was intoxicated.

Kalfani Ture, a law enforcement expert who reviewed materials from the encounter at Hearst Connecticut Media's request, said Riccio did not show signs of inebriation in the video, nor did he appear to run into traffic.

Given inconsistencies between the body camera footage and Schulz's report, Ture said he believed Schulz was not accurate in his account.

Yet records show department supervisors ultimately cleared Schulz of wrongdoing in connection with the incident, called his actions justified and said his account of the event was consistent with video evidence.

Ture called the incident and the department's handling of it "disturbing."

He noted the consequences could have been far worse for Riccio. The police dog "could have easily took a bite out of the femoral artery, and he could have bled out on the road," Ture said.

While the department deemed Schulz's use of force justified, it brought criminal charges against Riccio, including interfering with an officer, breach of peace, reckless use of a highway by a pedestrian and assault on a police canine because Riccio allegedly punched the dog's head while being bit. All charges were eventually dismissed, Riccio's attorney said.

As for Schulz, he no longer works for the Old Saybrook police department.

In March, state police arrested him following an off-duty fight at a restaurant. He was disciplined but continued to work for Old Saybrook police on a so-called "last-chance agreement" that made it easier for the department to fire him if he violated agency rules.

The state ultimately decided not to prosecute Schulz, who had faced one count of second-degree breach of peace.

Then, in early August, Schulz resigned after an internal investigation found evidence he "participated in sexual acts while on duty" and was "untruthful under oath" during the probe, according to a letter police chief Michael Spera sent the police commission. The department also found evidence Schulz had been "tampering with Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) equipment to conceal his whereabouts while on duty," the letter said.

Spera at the time told the commission he would ask the state's Police Officer Standards and Training Council to revoke Schulz's certification to work in law enforcement in Connecticut. But as of Jan. 12, Schulz has not been decertified, a council official said.

The town signed a deal with Schulz to keep additional details of that investigation a secret in exchange for his resignation.

The deal also gave Schulz custody of his police dog, the same one involved in the two incidents.

Repeated requests for comment on this story were sent to Schulz. In December, he told a reporter in a text message he would have her arrested if she contacted him again.

Spera, who was originally named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit but had the count against him dismissed, hung up when contacted by a reporter to discuss this case and did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.

Body camera footage

It's dark. Schulz, the officer behind the body camera, parks near an exit ramp and heads toward the highway, his police dog leashed in front of him, according to body camera footage of the moments leading up to Schulz's meeting with Riccio, which Hearst Connecticut Media obtained from Riccio's attorneys.

Schulz and his K9 walk to a grassy stretch abutting I-95. Ahead, Riccio is walking along the side of the road in their direction. According to Riccio's attorney, he was in a state of shock after the car crash and left the scene to get to a hotel to make a phone call.

Schulz and his canine, identified as Chase in the ensuing use of force report, start jogging toward Riccio, the footage shows.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground you'll be bit," Schulz yells at Riccio, who is on the cement shoulder of the interstate. "Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Turn around, turn around. You're gonna get bit."

"You know me," replies Riccio, who later in the video tells Schulz he is a local business owner. (It's unclear if they actually knew each other. Schulz denied knowing Riccio during the encounter.)

Schulz again commands Riccio to turn around, again warns him he will otherwise be bitten.

"I'm trying to get help," Riccio says, repeatedly.

After Schulz once more commands him to get on the ground, Riccio says he will not, turns around and begins to slowly walk away, according to the video.

The officer and the dog follow Riccio. The footage goes blurry as a struggle ensues.

Riccio cries out in pain and confusion: "Ow, what are you doing?" he asks. "What are you doing to me? Ow, ow, ow, the [expletive] dog is biting me."

After the dog is pulled away, another officer holds Riccio on the ground and Schulz puts the dog in his vehicle. Several minutes later, footage shows Schulz encounters Spera, the police chief, who has arrived on scene.

Schulz tells his boss Riccio was punching the dog in the face.

"Then he gets [charged with] assault on a police officer," Spera says.

A. Paul Spinella, one of Riccio's attorneys, said the dog bit out "a significant piece of (Riccio's) flesh."

"There's no possible justification for what occurred here," Spinella said. "It's an outrageous example of excessive force."

In addition to the dog bite, Riccio's lawsuit alleges Schulz "beat (Riccio) with his fists" and says Justin Hanna, an officer who arrived on scene after Schulz, joined in the beating. Hanna declined to comment.

Body camera footage does not show the alleged beating.

The lawsuit alleges Riccio "required three eye surgeries to repair a detached retina in his left eye" as a result of the encounter.

He also "developed bruising on his wrists, nose, and forearms the following day," according to a use of force report Schulz submitted six days after the incident.

Police reports

In that report, Schulz described responding to a car crash when he saw Riccio walking along the shoulder of the highway.

Riccio had lost control of his truck on the curve of the Exit 1 on-ramp, according to a crash report obtained by Connecticut State Police, which says his vehicle crossed the embankment, hit the guardrail and became airborne, crossing three lanes of traffic and stopping when it collided with the center median.

"While en route to the crash, it was relayed that the Old Saybrook Fire Department was out with (Riccio) momentarily and that (Riccio) fled the scene on foot after talking with EMS," the state police report says.

Schulz's report also described Riccio as "the subject of the evading."

Spinella, Riccio's attorney, said he did not know if paramedics were on scene. In a statement, he called the state police report "a total misrepresentation of the event."

As for Shulz's report, some elements appear to conflict with video footage, including his claim that Riccio, who is shown taking a few slow steps away from Schulz after failing to comply with his orders, "started to run towards the vehicular travel lane of Interstate 95."

Schulz wrote in his report that he told the dog to attack in order to protect Riccio and passing drivers.

"If the male made it to the vehicular travel lane in his intoxicated state, it was clear that the male could be hit by a pedestrian and seriously injured, if not killed, and that a passing motorist could be seriously injured attempting to avoid striking a pedestrian," Schulz wrote.

As the dog bites Riccio, the man's cries of pain can be heard in the video. Yet Schulz wrote that Riccio seemed "unbothered by the apprehension."

"I recognized this behavior of showing no pain from my police training and experience as if the male was impaired by a mix of alcohol and a controlled substance," Schulz said.

The narrative received backing from Schulz's supervisors.

"Ptlm. Schulz used force to physically apprehend Riccio when he attempted to evade + put himself and other innocent people in danger by running toward the highway," wrote Sgt. Stephen Hackett, the shift supervisor during the incident. "Riccio continued to actively physically fight Schulz + K9 Chase."

Lt. Jeffrey DePerry, who has since been promoted to captain and serves as the second highest-ranking member of the Old Saybrook Police Department, conducted a leadership review of the encounter.

"All reports are consistent with the video review," DePerry wrote. "The Use of Force was determined to be Justified, within Department Policy and offers a training opportunity for K9 deployments."

The finding meant no policy violations occurred "but the investigation revealed tactical error(s) that could be addressed through non-disciplinary, tactical improvement training," per the agency's use of force policy.

Hackett did not return requests for comment, while DePerry declined to comment.

Experts weigh in

To Ture, a former Atlanta police officer and assistant professor of African-American studies at Mount St. Mary's University, where he focuses on the intersection between crime, public safety and race, Schulz's report attempts to make an inappropriate use of force appear appropriate.

"This is prevarication and choreography at its best," said Ture. "Mr. Riccio did not run away. He did not dodge into traffic ... He appeared to be a citizen looking for help."

That Schulz's supervisors seem not to have taken issue with the report's apparent inaccuracies was even more concerning to Ture, who said it "suggests that there might be something culturally amiss, at least involving this immediate command staff — the lieutenant and the sergeant."

Meanwhile, law enforcement expert Keith Taylor also reviewed material from the encounter and said he found it difficult to draw a definitive conclusion without further information.

"We don't know what (the officer) knew walking into that situation," said Taylor, an adjunct assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who served with the New York Police Department for 23 years. "Even hothead officers can have legitimate reasons for use of force."

He suggested there could have been factors, not reflected in the video, that drove Schulz to use the canine.

But "when you have an officer that has ethical issues that are very compelling, you have to look at ... the possibility that excessive force was used," he said.

The matter would benefit from an objective third-party investigation, Taylor said.