Tensions escalated between minority lawmakers and police chiefs

bruce2HARTFORD — State’s Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, chairman of the legislative Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, set off some fireworks last week when he recalled a recent encounter with a Norwalk  cop who stopped him in an apparent late-night racial-profiling incident. Morris responded to the state’s Police Chiefs Association during a public hearing on bills covering racial-profiling (The Alvin Penn Act in honor of the late Bridgeport senator), body cameras and bystanders taking video of police incidents. Sen. Gary Holder Winfield, D-New Haven and Rep. Angel Arce, D-Hartford added to the criticism of local police. Arce talked about an incident in which he was profiled in Farmington.

Police Chiefs Anthony Salvatore from Cromwell, Matthew Reed from South Windsor and Paul J. Melanson of Farmington, appearing before the Judiciary Committee as legislative co-leaders of the association,  had voiced concerns about an immediate statewide use of body cameras; and opposed speeding up requirements for electronic receipts on racial information that would be given after every vehicular stops. The Alvin Penn Act required police department to submit reports on the races of those motorists who are stopped.

“Just this very week, after leaving a late-night meeting here, as I get off the highway… I’m on my blue tooth, I take a left hand turn…the light is green” said Morris, who is in his fifth term, at about four-and-a-half hours into a 9-hour hearing. “I pull over and I tell you what, after Eric Garner, as a black man it’s not a good feeling when you get pulled over…’Officer what’s wrong?’ ‘ID and registration.’ ‘Officer what’s wrong? What happened?’ He turns, he walks back to his car…He ran it. He found out I was a state rep. He comes back to the car. ‘Officer, what’s wrong?’ ‘ You went through the light back there.’ ‘I didn’t go through the light.'” The cops said he was looking for drunks.

“‘Careful driving tonight.’ I was glad to get out and away from there. Was there any record of that? It would have been nice for an electronic record…The bill we’re trying to do is protect the perception that people in our community have of police officers…We are treated differently.” Morris’s voice rose “That gentleman knows he had no right…As a grown man to go through the humiliation I went through was unnecessary…They treat us as less than human, less than equal. Racial profiling is alive and well in the state of Connecticut.”

Reed, explaining the chiefs’ concerns: “…We worry about the printer in the car…We do support the tenets of the Alvin Penn Act.”

Sen. Gary Holder Winfield: “There’s a trend here…The way you come to this building adds to that perception that we’re talking about… You come to this building saying ‘no.’ This is a problem.”

Sen.Eric Coleman, co-chairman of the committee: “I actually think this is a very useful dialogue. I wish we had more time for something that has the potential to be productive. I see there is a very divergent reception on the part of the chiefs and some of the members of the committee. I don’t think the resolution can be reached today and without genuine and honest discussion. I understand there is a tendency to take offense or to be defensive.”