A few decades ago Bridgeport State Senator Alvin Penn was stopped by a Trumbull police officer that triggered racial profiling legislation. The General Assembly’s Public Health Committee on Monday approved legislation that prohibits cops from crossing town lines to enforce municipal code violations, a case stemming from an incident last year involving former Major League baseball player Douglas Glanville, an ESPN analyst, who was shoveling snow in his Hartford driveway when a West Hartford cop asked “So, you trying to make a few extra bucks, shoveling people’s driveways around here?”
In response State Rep. Matthew Ritter sponsored legislation To prohibit peace officers from pursuing an offender outside the peace officer’s precinct for the purpose of enforcing a municipal ordinance, including an ordinance related to the health or welfare of the municipality’s residents.
The legislation still has a few hurdles for passage. Ritter is quoted in the Hartford Courant:
“I warn you it’s your town next,” he said. “Because in West Hartford they had an ordinance that said you cannot go door to door for solicitation, a West Hartford cop goes into my neighborhood in Hartford, knows nothing about the town, knows nothing about my neighbors and basically–I will not use too strong language–but I believe inappropriately and illegally started to question my neighbor about shoveling his own driveway.”
Glanville wrote about the incident for the Atlantic about a year ago. A segment from that commentary:
A police officer from West Hartford had pulled up across the street, exited his vehicle, and begun walking in my direction. I noted the strangeness of his being in Hartford–an entirely separate town with its own police force–so I thought he needed help. He approached me with purpose, and then, without any introduction or explanation he asked, “So, you trying to make a few extra bucks, shoveling people’s driveways around here?”
All of my homeowner confidence suddenly seemed like an illusion.
It would have been all too easy to play the “Do you know who I am?” game. My late father was an immigrant from Trinidad who enrolled at Howard University at age 31 and went on to become a psychiatrist. My mother was an important education reformer from the South. I graduated from an Ivy League school with an engineering degree, only to get selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft. I went on to play professionally for nearly 15 years, retiring into business then going on to write a book and a column for The New York Times. Today, I work at ESPN in another American dream job that lets me file my taxes under the description “baseball analyst.”
Full article here.
I’m embarrassed that not until tonight had I read Doug Glanville’s article in last April’s Atlantic Monthly, “I Was Racially Profiled in My Own Driveway [in Hartford, CT]” Apr 14 2014. Thank you for posting a link to it here, Lennie.
Glanville’s Atlantic article is a must-read.
Glanville’s persistent presence of mind and his ability to consider multiple angles astonish me. Who among us would find it in ourselves to proceed to ultimately transform a detestable encounter with a legal authority into an opportunity for dialogue and, I hope, measurable social progress for the greater good?
Thank you Doug Glanville, for your powerful writing and for your indelible example.
“My worldview is shaped by the idea of bridge-building, diplomacy and creating understanding in a thoughtful and patient way,” says Glanville. “In that experience, I learned to relate to a diverse swatch of vantage points, be it from religious, political, ethnic, cultural or from any other perspective.”–Doug Glanville
www .dougglanville.com/about-doug.html
I understood at the time Alvin Penn was arrested at the Trumbull movie theater location in a remote area of the parking lot getting serviced by his companion. Penn, as I understand what happened, became belligerent and acted entitled aggressive in his response to the police officer on site. That wasn’t racial. The cop was doing his job.
Even if your understanding is accurate, I would bet a dollar if a white man were in the same position and reacted the same, no arrest would have happened, possibly a warning or ticket, most likely no arrest.
It is anecdotally accurate. I made the statement as benign as possible. Why was he in the far reaches of the Trumbull Movie Theater complex long after the theaters were done with that day’s movies? The arrest came as a result of “do you know who I am?” instead of some form of contrite behavior for the act that was taking place in a public venue.
The same result would have happened to a white person who exhibited the same entitled behavior. Your argument is racist in context without substance of proof.
Actually, experience tells me otherwise. Including do you know who I am getting a sorry from the flashlight-holding officer. And I have yet to know a man who is calm and collected when interrupted during …
I’m sure race played the major part in Doug Glanville’s experience with the West Hartford police officer. However suburban versus urban biases are also evident. I’m a white guy but because I’m from Bridgeport have always felt put upon by Fairfield police. My sentiment began when I was 10 and pulled over with friends bicycling through Fairfield and told to “go back where you belong.” Repeated during my teen years and early 20s as well. Being a stereotypical 60+-year-old working-class hero I thought that bullshit was over. However last year I answered the bell to my front door to find one of Fairfield’s finest standing there. He asked me if I was someone I am not and I told him who I am. He then asked if I knew the person at hand. Again, no. He then began to question me about a vehicle parked in front of my house. I said I did not know who owned it and thought it belonged to someone next door as they frequently have a guest who leaves a car there. He continued with a third degree and gave me a bunch of shit and why didn’t I acknowledge the car had been there for five days and he certainly would if in front of his home. I asked him if he knew who owned the car and how long it had been there then why he was bothering me in Bridgeport and he should go back to Fairfield and find some jaywalkers to bother and to get off my property, the insolent bastard.
Did you ever get a ticket, warning or arrested by the insolent bastards in all those years?
Wow, flubadub. Thanks for posting this.
It’s amazing the Fairfield police officer didn’t try to work with the Bridgeport police to investigate with whatever suspected activities he sought to investigate in Bridgeport.
Can someone who’s wise about such legal matters–(Booty?)–suggest any reasonable recourse for flubadub?
I did not receive any ticket, warning or arrest, just the displeasure of being harassed. I do not see the need for any further recourse, and the Bridgeport PD did eventually come to assist.