TEAM Westport Gets Bias-Assault Report; Incident Called Deplorable

 

Frank Luongo

 

Date: September 21, 2007

Source: Westport News

 

 

TEAM Westport, the town’s multiculturalism committee, has an understanding with the Westport Police Department that the committee will be notified about bias and bigotry incidents that result in a police response.

 

“The procedure is in place and it is working,” TEAM Westport Chairman Harold Bailey said at a meeting of the committee on Tuesday, at which Chief of Police Alfred Fiore reported on one such incident that took place late last month.

 

Fiore said that an altercation at the Cumberland Farms store at the intersection of Hillspoint Road and Post Road East on August 31, led to the arrest of a Westport resident who was charged with third-degree assault, breach of peace and racial intimidation.

 

The Westport resident is a 41-year-old white male and the alleged victim is a 65-year-old black male who lives in Norwalk and drives for Westport Taxi.  Their altercation reportedly resulted from a dispute over access to a gasoline pump.

 

A store employee, who called the police, and a 70-year-old woman, who beeped her car horn in an effort to draw attention to the assault, reportedly witnessed the younger man pursuing the bloodied and bruised older man as he tried to back away and defend himself, according to Fiore.

 

The younger man, Fiore said, was reportedly heard by witnesses to use the “n-word” slur and tell the older man to “go back to Africa.”  Bailey called the incident “absolutely deplorable.”

 

Fiore said that he offered to help the Norwalk resident make contact with TEAM Westport for its support and encouragement, but found he did not need further assistance.

 

“He was appreciative of being called by the department the next day to see how he was feeling,” Fiore said.

 

“We want to le them (victims) know who they can talk to,” Bailey said, and added that he would like to find funding for TEAM Westport to provide a staff advocate for victims of bias.  “We’ve had one of these incidents a year for some time,” Bailey said.

 

TEAM Westport has prepared a pamphlet, which is now under review by town counsel, that provides victims of bias crimes with information about the steps they should consider taking after such incidents..

 

Police officers will hand out the pamphlets at the scene of such incidents, according to Fiore.  “We already do this for the Domestic Violence Center,” he said.

 

There was a consensus at the meeting among TEAM Westport members that the particular alleged incident was an isolated event and did not reflect a pattern or trend in town.

 

Fiore agreed with that assessment, although he said that bias abuse, like domestic abuse, tends to be underreported by victims.

 

Barbara Butler, a TEAM member and director of the Westport Department of Social Services, said that the assault did not appear to be a “calculated act” of discrimination, but rather suggested a “lack of impulse control.  He might have attacked anybody.”

 

“There’s a record here of prior assaults,” Fiore said.  He added that the arrested man was out of jail on parole from previous sentencing.

 

Asked by the committee if there were any indications that the person arrested was connected with a racial supremacist group in the area known as the Connecticut White Wolves, Fiore said that he saw none.

 

“We have intelligence on that group and are watching them.  They’ve passed through here,” Fiore said, adding that they have not yet been involved in any “action” in town.


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