With a federal investigation looming of alleged cross-border racial profiling, East Haven police set up a checkpoint by a Latino bakery — and threatened again to snatch a camera when they were watched.
Crusading pro-immigrant New Haven priest Father James Manship and civil-rights advocates from Yale Law School rushed across the New Haven-East Haven border Thursday to watch what Manship described as a retaliatory action against East Haven’s Latino community.
Local police had set up a DWI checkpoint directly in front of Guti’z Bakery, one of several Latino-owned businesses that have complained of police harassment.
East Haven police said that the checkpoint was a routine activity performed at the same location for years. Its placement had nothing to do with the bakery.
Police also threatened to arrest this reporter for taking pictures. They threatened to confiscate the camera.
What might normally be a routine operation took on added tensions in the wake of a February confrontation that made national news and embarrassed the East Haven cops when a videotape revealed they had lied in an official report.
Members of East Haven’s growing Latino community contend that the local police have singled them out for intimidation and harassment, pulling them over without cause and verbally and even physically abusing them.
Father Manship, whose Fair Haven church is made up largely of Spanish-speaking immigrants, has acted as an advocate on their behalf. He was arrested in February while videotaping East Haven police activity in a Latino-owned convenience store. The footage from Manship’s confiscated camera was later released, contradicting the official police report.
After the charges against Manship were dropped, student attorneys at Yale joined with parishioners at Manship’s church to file a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. Their complaint described the alleged police abuse of East Haven Latinos and called for a federal investigation of the entire department. The Department of Justice has not yet decided whether to launch such an investigation.
Thursday night’s checkpoint consisted of lines of traffic cones, three cruisers, and half a dozen police officers standing on Main Street’s double yellow line. The officers visually inspected and occasionally stopped eastbound motorists. Nearby, in the parking lot of Goody’s Hardware Store, a mobile command unit trailer was parked, along with a police van and several tow trucks.
At 9:15 p.m., Father Manship was standing in front of the bakery, videotaping the scene with his digital camera.
“I’m angry right now,” he said. “This is retaliation. This is what they’ve been doing.”
He described the placement of the DWI checkpoint — so close to Guti’z Bakery — as “really shameful.”
“It’s curious that they would pick right here,” he said, “to further put their heelprint in this situation.”
Manship said that the police activity was having an effect on East Haven Latinos. “I think most people are scared as hell,” he said.
Inside the bakery, owner Pedro Gutierrez (pictured) was closing up shop. He said that he’d had only three customers in the two hours since the checkpoint started, at around 7 p.m. “I normally have much more customers,” he said.
“I feel at the position I can’t do anything,” he said. “This is what it is. What can I do?”
Merlhy Gutierrez, Pedro’s daughter, called from the family’s apartment above the bakery. She said that she had been videotaping the police activity since it began. She said she saw a clear pattern in whom the police chose to stop.
“If you’re white… they were just waving you off,” Merlhy said. She said she saw two cars towed away, both with Latino drivers.
Back outside the bakery, two student attorneys from Yale were taking notes. Valarie Kaur, who helped file the DOJ complaint, said that the police’s action was, at the very least, “shortsighted.”
“At a time when the U.S. Department of Justice is considering whether to open an investigation of the East Haven Police Department, rather than showing any signs of changing their practices, they’re continuing to engage in what the community experiences as racial profiling,” she said. “To not anticipate that this would be seen as a sign of intimidation and harassment is shortsighted.”
Kaur said that she was at the bakery because the Yale team had received a phone call from Merlhy about the police action. “There are calls flying all over the Latino community right now… which is why we’re out here,” she said.
Kaur later said that Yale lawyers estimated that “dozens of families in the Latino community in East Haven were warned of the checkpoint and didn’t leave their homes.”
Manship later said that the checkpoint was “indicative of a deeper issue of policing in the East Haven Police Department.”
“This is why an outside agency needs to come in and look at this,” Father Manship said. “This is a problem that can’t be fixed from the inside.”
Cops And Cameras
I arrived in my car at 9 p.m. and was waved through the checkpoint. After parking my car, I approached one of the officers to inquire about the evening’s activity. The officer told me that the checkpoint was randomly placed and that it had been advertised beforehand in the local paper. I was then asked to move to the sidewalk.
I stepped onto the sidewalk. When the police officers refused to answer any more questions, I began to photograph the checkpoint. An officer who identified himself as Sgt. Miller (at right in top photo) told me to stop taking pictures. He said that I did not have permission to photograph him or any of his officers. He said that they might be involved in “sensitive cases.”
“We can’t watch you and look at the cars at the same time,” said Miller. (Miller, whose first name is John, was also involved in the February videocamera incident. In a separate incident, that state’s attorney’s office in 2008 investigated an incident in which Miller shot dead an armed suspect in a domestic dispute after a car chase; the office found that Miller acted justifiably.)
I continued to photograph. Several of the policemen pointed their flashlights directly at my camera, preventing me from taking a properly exposed image. Sgt. Miller threatened to take my camera “as evidence,” if I didn’t stop photographing. Then he threatened me with arrest, “if you interfere with this checkpoint in any way.”
Shortly after that, two police officers approached me and told me I had to move away. I moved down the sidewalk.
Sgt. Gary DePalma approached me and explained that the checkpoint was a routine operation. “That’s all this is,” he said.
The location was chosen because Goody’s Hardware parking lot is big enough to accommodate turning vehicles, DePalma said. “We operate anywhere we can do it safely.”
“I’ve been a police officer in East Haven for 22 years. We’ve done it here long before the restaurant opened,” the sergeant continued. “This has nothing to do with the bakery.” (DePalma was one of two East Haven cops who chased an unarmed New Haven man named Malik Jones at high speed into Fair Haven in 1997; DePalma’s partner shot Jones, repeatedly, and killed him after the chase.)
“It’s always here,” said a tow truck driver who identified himself only as Roadrash (at right in photo).
“It’s usually always here because of the lot,” said another tower (center, seated), who declined to give a name. He said two cars had been towed so far that night, but he couldn’t say whether the drivers were Latino or not.
“I’ve seen them stop all different kinds of people,” he said. “There is a variety.”
Havent the police learned anything about the public's right to video tape and photograph them? Guess not. When is the lawsuit? It seems that is the only way for them to change their bad behavior.
Curious time to set up a check point for drunks, on a Thursday night. I sure would like to know what the price of that check point was and who paid for it?