Main Street Celebrates Gallo’s Departure

by Thomas MacMillan & Paul Bass | Jan 30, 2012 3:15 pm

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Posted to: Legal Writes

(Updated) East Haven Police Chief Leonard Gallo’s retirement launches a new chapter in the saga of a New Haven exile as well as of a white-majority town’s resistance to change, infused with echoes of mid-20th century standoffs between southern communities and the federal government. The news also brought smiles to Guti’z Bakery. The retirement of Gallo—aka “Co-Conspirator-1” in a federal indictment of alleged racial police harassment and violence and rampant tampering with evidence—was announced at a Monday 11 a.m. press conference by embattled East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo. “I think it’s good news. We need a chief willing to take care of this. We need a chief willing to enforce the law and not discriminate,” said owner Pedro Gutierrez, 55, who originally hails from Ecuador. Maturo (pictured above at the press conference) read a prepared statement saying Gallo had handed in retirement papers that morning and had informed him of the decision last Friday. He announced a “transparent” search for a new chief would begin “immediately.” In the meantime, Deputy Chief John Mannion—who had clashed with Gallo—will run the department, Maturo announced. He said he would not take questions from the press. Gallo, who’s 64, did not attend the conference. His attorney, Jonathan Einhorn, did. Einhorn defended Gallo, saying the departing chief wanted to avoid being a “distraction.” Gallo has served as East Haven’s chief for 14 years, a period marked by ongoing racial conflict with Latinos and Latino advocates from New Haven and East Haven. “He feels he’s doing the best thing for the town,” Einhorn said of Gallo’s decision to retire. The news moves a police chief firmly into the role of target of a federal criminal investigation, without responsibility for simultaneously running a police department facing additional expected arrests. Gutierrez (pictured) said that in the past year he has noticed a dramatic decline in problems with police at his bakery and its environs. The bakery had been at the epicenter of the ongoing racial tension with East Haven police that precipitated the current investigation. Edith Sanchez (pictured), who works at the bakery, has also noticed a change. Sanchez, a 34-year-old Peruvian native, moved out of East Haven a couple of years ago because the police had frightened her by stopping her so often for no reason on her way to the laundromat, she said. She moved to New Haven where the police wouldn’t bother her, she said. Then two months ago friends told her the police harassment had subsided, she said. So she moved back to East Haven, where general crime is much lower than in New Haven, she said. Since returning, she said she hasn’t felt harassed. Down the street at Los Amigos grocery store, Giovanny Rodriguez (pictured), who lives near the border in New Haven, said he also has only felt safe returning to East Haven in the last couple of months. He welcomed the news of Gallo’s departure. He said it will create a “clear space” for a thorough investigation of the department. Rodriguez’s uncle, Luis Rodriguez, has owned the store for four years and lived through the worst of the police department harassment. He said the Gallo’s retirement is a positive development, but it should be only the first step to further changes. “I’m very sure that many police remain who were involved in these matters,” he said in Spanish. He said he hopes his customers will begin to return to the store. “After four years of torture, everyone can come back.” Luis (pictured) said he’s looking forward to the entire East Haven community coming together as one, once the abuse and harassment is put in the past. Elsewhere in town, some hope things will continue as they have. Ferdinando Cerrato, a 79-year-old retired barber from Wooster Street said he’s lived in East Haven for 47 years. He said the chief only retired because he was under pressure. “He and the East Haven police department are doing they’re job right.” The Latino influx in recent years is ruining East Haven, he said. “They’re all criminals. They should be arrested and deported.” He said he’s disgusted to see signs in Spanish around town. “They’re destroying our language, history and culture,” he said. Cerrato said his mother and father were Italian immigrants who took night classes to learn English and American history. Contemporary Latino immigrants to East Haven “couldn’t care less about American history,” he said. “It’s becoming a third-world banana republic,” Cerrato said of East Haven. New Haveners involved in suing East Haven reacted positively to Monday’s news. “The power structure that perpetuated a toxic culture within the East Haven Police Department is finally crumbling,” Christopher Lapinig, a student in Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, stated in a release. Added civil-rights attorney David Rosen, in the same release: “We continue to learn the extent to which the police department’s law enforcement efforts were contaminated by the racism and police abuse that Gallo helped cultivate.” Monday morning, before the press conference, Mayor Maturo met with representatives of the state Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission. East Haven State Sen. Len Fasano arranged the meeting. Participants in the meeting— state Rep. Andres Ayala of Bridgeport; Isaias Diaz, chair of Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission; and Werner Oyanadal (pictured, right to left), acting executive director of the commission—said they asked for not just Gallo’s resignation, but Maturo’s as well. They didn’t disclose the answer they received. Meanwhile, a new fight began Monday within East Haven, about whether Gallo should receive severance or should be fired. (More about that later in this story.) Years In The Making Gallo’s departure represents a turning point in a decades-old battle over integration and police misconduct between, first, New Haven and East Haven; and now including the federal government. Newspapers from the New Haven Register to The New York Times have blasted Maturo’s handling of an ongoing federal criminal probe into police misconduct and racial profiling and have called for Gallo’s ouster. Over 15,000 people have signed an online petition echoing that call, according to a Monday Register article. (You can find links to key Independent stories here, here, and here; and to a directory of the Register’s ongoing coverage here.) Until now Maturo and Gallo have acted with defiance. A previous mayor, April Capone, had placed Gallo on leave pending the federal probe’s conclusion. Maturo, a former mayor, won the office back last November. He promptly reinstated Gallo—who had been run off the New Haven force because of his reputation for abusing racial minorities, among other hard-edged tactics—in defiance of the feds. At a press conference last month, federal officials said the Maturo-Gallo regime has openly blocked their investigation. They portrayed East Haven as one of the most recalcitrant communities in the nation they’ve encountered in civil-rights probes. Meanwhile, over the past week Maturo has provoked national protests (including the sending of hundreds of tacos to his office) with public comments that range from hostile to deeply confused about the growing Latino population in his town, which is largely Ecuadorean and is estimated at 10 percent. The emerging narrative has placed Gallo and Maturo in the roles of Southern segregationists like Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, and George Wallace, who resisted racial changes and battled activists and federal officials alike during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Fast Forward A Half Century New Haven African-Americans have long charged East Haven cops with routinely harassing and sometimes brutalizing them. Those complaints exploded in public in 1997 when a white East Haven cop chased an unarmed black driver named Malik Jones into New Haven then shot him dead at close range. Years of complaints about East Haven brutality emerged, along with complaints about a police culture; the department took heat for its official softball T-shirts, which had a picture of cops slamming suspects against a car and the logo “Boyz On The Hood.” (Read one Italian-American urban cop’s history of that dynamic here.) The issue exploded again in 2009 after the Independent reported that East Haven police falsely arrested a Fair Haven priest, Father James Manship, when he went to investigate charges from his Latino immigrant parishioners of rampant police profiling, harassment, and trumped-up arrests. A Yale Law School student clinic followed with a lawsuit. The actions brought to light tensions over the spilling of New Haven’s growing Ecuadorean immigrant community over the border into East Haven. Then the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil-rights investigation. Last month it announced it had confirmed those complaints. In separate criminal and civil investigations, it spent two years looking into Gallo’s crew. It examined computer records, messages sent among officers, police reports. Throughout, officials charged, Gallo himself and some of his underlings not only refused to cooperate—they blocked the feds’ work. And they allegedly intimidated rank-and-file cops who considered providing information to the feds. The U.S. Attorney’s office released a report detailing alleged widespread abuses; Gallo was a key character in the report. (Read about that here.) The report accused Gallo “and other EHPD officers” of “creat[ing] a hostile and intimidating environment for persons who wished to cooperate with our investigation.” The report cited “messages on a police union bulletin board that referred to ‘rats’ at EHPD.” It said “Chief Gallo had warned that DOJ had agreed to provide him with the names of individuals who cooperated with the investigation,” even though DOJ had told Gallo names would remain confidential. And, “remarkably,” according to the report, EHPD officers at “a late evening meeting ... warned DOJ staff and a police practices consultant that they could not guarantee their safety during ridealongs with officers.” Officials said if East Haven doesn’t clean up its act, a civil lawsuit could follow. Meanwhile, a criminal case proceeded based on federal grand jury testimony being presented in Bridgeport. That led to the arrests last Tuesday of four cops. More arrests are expected. And last Tuesday’s indictment made it clear that Gallo (largely acknowledged as “Co-Conspirator-1” in the document) is in the crosshairs of the federal criminal probe. So did conversations with people familiar with questioning by the U.S. attorney and grand jury investigating the East Haven case. Read about that here. Einhorn: Gallo’s Innocent Einhorn (pictured), Gallo’s attorney, told reporters Gallo did not resign under duress. And his retirement after 14 years as chief and 42 years in law enforcement should not in any way be “construed” as an admission of guilt, Einhorn said. “He is retiring form his position for one reason alone—that is his desire to not be a distracting element,” Einhorn said. He noted Gallo’s being named as a defendant in a civil suit and his role as the feds’ “Co-Conspirator-1” in the federal indictment. “Should he be charged in a federal criminal case, we will successfully defend” him, Einhorn said. Gallo “is not guilty. He should not be arrested. If arrested, he will be acquitted on any charges,” Einhorn said. He said he had worked with Gallo on the statement. Einhorn said Gallo’s retirement takes effect Friday. That gives him time to negotiate a retirement package. But two East Haven police commissioners want to see Gallo fired, not retiring, so that he wouldn’t receive any severance. They’ll have to work fast. Those two commissioners, Fred Brow (pictured) and Jim Krebs, said after the news conference Monday that they plan to recommend at Tuesday night’s regularly monthly commission meeting that Gallo be fired. Brow’s and Krebs’ terms as commissioners expire Tuesday night. They were appointees of the previous mayor, and have clashed regularly with Maturo and Gallo.

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posted by: MalcB on January 30, 2012 10:59am Not for nothing, but since the Feds came into the dept looking for evidence and trying to get people to make self-incriminating statements the Feds could later use (or twist around) to both sue them and arrest them, why would they expect cooperation with that? Gee, even street criminals and drug dealers have a right not to cooperate with those looking to charge em with something.

posted by: Bill on January 30, 2012 11:37am The FBI resorts to “conspiracy” whenever they have a weak case.

posted by: believe on January 30, 2012 11:52am The feds, who are only doing the bidding of the Obama administration, make up lots of stuff all of the time and what can the general public do about it? Nothing. Because the feds have all of the power. They can twist the truth into anything they want to fit their politically correct needs. The bottom line is that ... the hands of these cops have been tied by politically correct liberals, like the previous Mayor, who should be ashamed of herself for siding with that troublemaker priest and catering to ...s. ...

posted by: Stavener on January 30, 2012 12:18pm Sure, he retires and takes his pension before ... he looses it all. The next question is what did Maturo know and when did he know it? And if he didn’t know, what rock has he been under?

posted by: Daniel Boardman on January 30, 2012 12:29pm The very first sentence of this piece is inflammatory.

What town in New England is not, statistically, comprised of a majority of Caucasians?

“white-majority”?

When people say that the media keeps fanning the flame of racism, I now take notice.

posted by: westville man on January 30, 2012 12:52pm @ Boardman Stating the fact that East Haven is “white majority” gives the story context where the whole issue is racism within the police department. There’d be no flames to fan if there wasnt a fire.

And the fire has been burning in East Haven forever. I lived there 30 years.

Would you be happy if the media left these stories alone so they can fester under cover of ignorance?

posted by: TAKE MY CHIEF PLEASE on January 30, 2012 1:22pm Attention East Haven Police Department: I have a great candidate for you. He is a real mover and shaker, he loves to go from PD to PD, and he might be available. Your new candidate: Chief Esserman. Please take him.

Thanks

NHPD

posted by: first observer on January 30, 2012 1:39pm This article is an excellent example of putting things into context. I am astounded at the commenters above who willfully deny years’ worth of appalling news out of East Haven, and who blindly lash out at “feds,” whose focus onto all the ongoing abuses has been desperately needed all this time, and has now, thankfully, arrived.

posted by: Rocco on January 30, 2012 2:11pm I am reminded of that 70’s saying, “Hate Cops?, Next time you need one call a hippie” I think it can be applied here. I’m sure their not all saints, but they have a ruff job and have to deal with a lot of bad people every day. Cut them some slack.

posted by: Billy on January 30, 2012 2:24pm A respectable attorney like Mr. Einhorn must be embarrassed to state things like Gallo has never been involved in racial profiling. Profiling, intimidation, and racism have been the pattern throughout his career. Given the amount of people that have spent time locked up or healing from “beat downs” as a direct result of his crooked leadership, it is only proper that the Justice Department hand him a stiff sentence. There needs to be a clear message that Gallo’s values and practices are no longer acceptable in East Haven, New Haven, or anywhere for that matter. Now it’s time for Mayor Maturo to step down. He ran the ship that condoned Gallo’s racist tactics. He needs to face up to that responsibility, do the honorable thing, and move on.

posted by: Kevin By letting him retire, he is ensured his pension, while punishment has NOT been implemented on a guilty person, there’s no doubt he faulted, and we all know there are bad cops out there, bitter, recented, wrong and you name it, the fact that they’re cops is in no way an excuse to let them get away, I am sure he knows of his misbehaving ways, yet he was the chief, so to resume, I am sad to see how just cuz you are a cop, you receive no punishment, so what kind of example are we sending out there?: It’s OK to fault, as long as you can get away with it!

posted by: streever These comments are disgusting. Malik Jones and the ongoing racial harassment—“Boyz on the Hood”—the level of arrogance, racism, and the preventable deaths, violence, and harassment that have occurred move this beyond petty ideological differences. The NHI is biased? What about the cop who murdered a man? What about the cops who pulled over Edith on a daily basis and made her life a living hell? I get that racists feel the need to defend racism. I look at highly functioning police departments in other cities, and I see them functioning without shooting someone for being black. I see them functioning without pulling the same latina woman over on a daily basis when she has done no wrong. I’m not against cops, and to turn this into some strawman fight between law & order and anarchy is the childish defense of someone who wants to support racism. Institutionalized racism is wrong and perpetuates societal problems that affect all of us. Even if you PERSONALLY look down on members of other races, you must be capable of understanding that a systemic disrespect toward minorities is not in anyone’s best interest.

posted by: Concerned on January 30, 2012 3:05pm This is a microcosm of whats going on in this country. The failure of our elected officials to act regarding undocumented immigrants just boiled over in East Haven. Racism is wrong but now an entire town hates the Latino community, not just 5 cops…I hope it gets better!

posted by: Angel on January 30, 2012 3:34pm Imagine if newly ousted Chief Adger from New Haven ended up as the Chief of East Haven….. Think about it.

posted by: Memorial Field on January 30, 2012 3:35pm This is a good day for East Haven, it’s a day that I hope will be remembered positively for those of us who live here and are not hate mongers, and who embrace our entire community.

Lets remember though before the world starts to think we are all stuck in 1962 East Haven, for four years we ourselves elected a young female progressive mayor, and only failed to do so just recently by a mere 33 votes. Time has changed this town, and today’s events will further change East Haven, for the better.

But I fear that marchers and interference from people who do not live here - regardless of ethnicity - will be met with the same diDustinhat the Reconstruction era northern carpetbaggers were. We’ve seen the light, let the change come from within, and let the change be real.

East Haven is indeed a throwback, and has some work to do, but it’s a town that is redefining itself, and should be given the proper credit.

posted by: CHris O on January 30, 2012 3:35pm While I have seen racism first hand in East Haven, I also see it in New Haven and most suburban towns. This racism/ hate is often between “minority groups”. While it is easy to vilify its harder to think about why this exists and what we can do about it. I am no expert but I see a correlation between education levels/ wealth and tolerance. Broad brush painting is used so often in each direction on this topic. Not all of East Haven is racist nor is anywhere totally accepting.

posted by: Matt on January 30, 2012 4:06pm Agree 100% with Stever. Some of the people here defending the actions of Gallo are embarrassing themselves. You’ve now aired your biases and prejudices out in a public forum. Why not embrace a news service for covering and helping to coerce change in a town that is in need of good news right now.

posted by: Dave Francis The Liberals, Unions, farmers, radical groups, special interest and even the major churches still think America should absorb every foreign visitor or every illegal migrant, even though these entities would pay nothing towards their monetary support? Under their foolish direction this land could be overrun with even more abject poverty than what we have now. Then again, ObamaCare will treat anybody with the compliments of US taxpayers. We will all be forced by law to pay our fair-share of taxes into his massive healthcare pool in future years. Not only have to accept paying for our own low income, homeless people, but the absconders from other lands? We will become the United Nations of PPO’s, HMO’s that will bankrupt this nation? We are already sliding into a giant mire, but we can at least take release some of the intense pressure by the example of Mitt Romney statement; that we can still exercise a citizen’s right in demanding the ‘Legal Workforce Act’ or Mandatory E-Verify (H.R. 2885). This is true unadulterated immigration enforcement, by driving illegal aliens into self-deportation. The US Government has nothing to do, but audit business or listen to informants or whistle-blowers that have a front row seat, well aware of companies not complying with E-Verify? Once a few business owners see the inside of a prison cell or get fined millions of dollars the word will emanate around the country. These tough sanctions for violating the law will be determined to be an absolute deterrent if they hire illegal labor. The second urgent bill is the “Citizenship Birthright Amendment bill (H.R.140), which will derail the persistence of any illegal alien, of any national gaining immediate citizen for their baby and thereby unable to collect welfare benefits, that only citizens should have the approval. Outside of the radical manipulation of the Liberal press, read THE TRUE FACTUAL daily news columns at “American Patrol” Site. Only the American people have the unique power of the vote, to descend on any given political representative and insist they co-sponsor these laws? If you think for one minute that either party without your pressing by voters that politicians are going to support either of these laws without you harassing them; nothing will happen, ever? One thing’s for sure that paying out over $113 billion dollars a year in pandering to 22 million plus illegal aliens is not going away and the cold facts is the dollar amount is not going to fade? The public assistance programs are going to accelerate under this administrations Socialist dependency? It’s just going to grow as well as the overpopulation of this nation. Are we to face shortages of everything in our future? Learn the absolute truths at NumbersUSA. The E-Verify program must be succeeding as 4 Democrats have now co-sponsored this bill and you too should contact your federal or local lawmaker’s at 202-224-3121 and demand it. REMEMBER NON-CITIZENS DO VOTE IN ALL ELECTIONS AND WILL AGAIN IN 2012, WHILE DEMOCRATS LOOK THE OTHER WAY. The TEA PARTY does not segregate any race or nationality as the Liberal media would like you to believe, it doesn’t alienate any person who is here—LEGALLY. The WE THE PEOPLE TEA PARTY of tens of millions of members just requests that the 1986 Immigration law (IRCA) enforced and not altered to pander to illegal migrants and immigrants. Learn some fact-finding by researching at NumbersUSA, American Patrol, and Judicial Watch and Heritage Foundation sites. Outside of the radical manipulation of the Liberal press, read THE TRUE FACTUAL daily news columns at “American Patrol” Site. The E-Verify program must be succeeding as 4 Democrats have now co-sponsored this bill and you too should contact your federal or local lawmaker’s at 202-224-3121 and demand that this bill be passed.

posted by: Born in Connecticut on January 30, 2012 5:09pm I was born and raised here in CT. and I’ve always been warned “not to go into East Haven”, it has always been “listed” as a prejudice town. I never had a reason to go there, I don’t know anyone that lives there, and I’m not going to shop somewhere that my green money is accepted, but not my black a$$. So,, I stay out of East Haven. And I’m sick of the Malik Jones story, he was looking for trouble, and had a rap sheet a mile long.

posted by: Bill on January 30, 2012 5:12pm Streever seems to be calling folks that believe in innocent until proven guilty racists. Obviously the NHI does not support that right by their slanderous reporting. ...

posted by: Eric Smith on January 30, 2012 5:19pm Angel! That would be a brilliant twist on two current stories affecting two cities. I like the way you’re thinking. I don’t know if it would ever happen, but it would be great if it did.

posted by: Eric Smith on January 30, 2012 5:23pm Memorial Field…If most of the people in East Haven think like you, and I hope they do, your city will be fine.

posted by: Billy on January 30, 2012 5:38pm I hope that Mr. Brow and Mr. Krebs are successful in their attempt to get Chief Gallo fired BEFORE he can retire. Gallo deserves NOTHING but a long stay in a small, federally funded cell. If Mr. Brow and Mr. Krebs are not successful in that effort, I applaud them for doing the honorable thing in a direct protest of these abusers of power - Maturo and Gallo - who have used their power to intimidate their fellow East Haveners.

posted by: anon on January 30, 2012 5:41pm “They’re all criminals.” Really? East Haven Hispanic Population

1990: 500

2000: 1,200

2010: 3,000 Violent Crimes per 100,000 persons

1990: 220

2000: 210

2010: 130

posted by: streever Bill,

where does this article claim anyone is “guilty”? The article says people have been “charged” and some people are “happy” to see them retire. The bias is in the disproportionate defense—Gallo’s defenders are jumping to his defense despite the NHI not having said he is guilty of anything. They merely are letting you know that the story is relevant because Gallo is being charged by the FBI with a crime. When Malik Jones was shot dead, was he presumed innocent? When every latino in East Haven is routinely harassed and you and the other defenders say “well there are so many illegal immigrants what do you expect” is that a presumption of innocence? You currently have it both ways. Your people are presumed innocent, while the people who are being mistreated are not. When one points out this contradiction, you and the defenders start accusing them of doing exactly what you are doing. Where is the logic? Where is the justice? The comments here in blanket defense of racial profiling state that those of us against racial profiling are presuming guilt, but it is the opposite—you’ve not only accepted and acknowledged that racial profiling is happening, but are defending it as acceptable. You can’t REALLY reason this both ways.

posted by: dee on January 30, 2012 6:07pm Dave Francis, I read things like what you wrote, and I don’t know whether to scream or cry. ...

posted by: streever Dave Francis

Is that comment relevant to this story? Under Chief Gallo, the EHPD received record levels of complaints about police harassment of latinos who were legal americans. Now the FBI is investigating him. How is it biased to describe this? How is that liberal/biased/etc? This is news. It is something that matters to a lot of people (as you can see by all these comments and the FBI probe). I just don’t understand what makes you say that this is a liberal bias.

posted by: Anon on January 30, 2012 6:45pm Very well said, Streever @ 4:48. The flawed logic gets me every time. To frame their racism and inhumanity around immigration is quite convenient this time around. ....

posted by: Bruce on January 30, 2012 8:32pm The FBI rarely brings charges unless they already have a lock solid case. I’d be surprised if this didn’t end in convictions on most counts.

posted by: Truth Avenger on January 30, 2012 8:32pm @Dave Francis who said, “The TEA PARTY does not segregate any race or nationality as the Liberal media would like you to believe”...No they don’t segregate, they just slander, defame, insult, intimidate, bully, spit, swagger with guns at the hip, with very few folks of color entering their ranks. Francis- I’ve been to tea party rallies up close and personal as an observer. We have all seen the ugly placards and watched the twisted faces spewing twisted words. Your comments have me reaching for my check book to write another check to The Southern Poverty Law Center(http://www.splcenter.org/) Articles at the site, like the one below, routinely expose entities across the country whose anti-immigrant or racist rhetoric undermines the foundations of our democracy:

Warning to Lawmakers Considering State Anti-Immigrant Bills: Remember Alabama

By Mary Bauer, Legal Director(http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/warning-to-lawmakers-considering-state-anti-immigrant-bills-remember-alabama)

With a new year upon us, many state legislatures across the country will be convening. Some may attempt to follow in the steps of Alabama by passing harsh, anti-immigrant legislation. Before they do, they should remember Alabama.

posted by: Lance on January 30, 2012 9:01pm It’s a great day for law enforcement. Len gallo ruined the east haven police department and his adverse effect on the quality of life in east haven can never be reversed. That is the legacy he leaves. Not to mention probable jail time for the officers that chose to follow him over the cliff. I feel bad for those guys but they were warned long ago, they chose to get buffaloed by gallo instead.

posted by: marko on January 30, 2012 9:10pm Wow, Dave Francis, there’s some serious truthiness going on in your treatise.

posted by: Curious on January 30, 2012 10:14pm Retired with pension? This guy is a bigot who probably could get nailed in a lawsuit. He should have been fired. Let’s hope the feds pick the bones clean on this one and get his pension revoked. I may hate illegal immigration, but I hate bullies even more.

posted by: Curious on January 30, 2012 10:17pm Dave Francis, You think the cops don’t have a union? ... It’s the police union that lets BS like this happen, and let’s them retire with pay.

posted by: R. A. Gibson on January 30, 2012 10:38pm Will East Haven be known to the world as the 1960s era Birmingham, Alabama of the North? If East Haven does not clean house politically it will solidify its reputation as one of the most racist and intolerant cities in Connecticut.

East Haven’s racial and cultural diversity is bound to increase. Those quoted in this story who believe that the East Haven police have been doing a stellar job in protecting the rights of all the people and who believe that Hispanics merchants and residents are ruining their town are going to have to get used to change. Otherwise the federal government is going to have to come into East Haven and uphold the U.S. Constitution and federal laws to protect the civil rights of those who have been abused by East Haven leadership.

A first step was made in getting rid of Chief Gallo. The next step is to get rid of your mayor who is a clueless and foolish embarrassment to East Haven, the state of Connecticut, and the United States of America.

The whole world is now watching East Haven. East Haven had better do the right thing or go bankrupt trying to fight truth, justice and the American way in the federal courts in defense of a defenseless police department and a racially insensitive mayor.

posted by: Leonidas on January 30, 2012 11:33pm The argument about illegals is not what this is about. The issue is profiling. Through profiling government takes away rights of legal, law abiding citizens. American citizens of Latino ethnicity (Please note that Latino is not a “race”) living in, working in or driving through East Haven were systematically harassed simply because of ethnicity. Those in East Haven, including police officers, who questioned the legality and morality of this were harassed. These citizens were deprived of their rights and this was reinforced by the creation of a hostile and intimidating environment. When this happens all of our rights have been deprived no matter who we are.

posted by: Danno on January 31, 2012 1:17am Gallo should be denied pension. ...

posted by: cecilia proto on January 31, 2012 7:28am I am surprised that people can actually lie that racism does not exist. I have lived in New Haven for 39 years and also when I was younger. I am always at XPect in East Haven and never ever saw a cop sit on Main Street across from the barber shop. The bakery opens they are sitting there daily. Harassment, don’t know?

But the whole problem is not just racism, its horrible attitudes by young rookie’s ... I am a grown woman, 62 years old and white, I have had double knee replacements and still having them repaired. They always torture me at the East town beach. Cocky, rude and not professional at all.

I recently was talking to police in front of my house about policies of the police dept. My Dad always told me,“if someone comes after you with a pitchfork,what do you do”. I told these young officers, I know they have a hard job,you chose it. but the kids today are lost, no values, no education,no parent involvement. You maybe the only source of direction they have,don’t be the enemy,try aprroaching with some understanding of what some of these kids go through.

I am very involved in my community,I have seen police brutality for years. we need a change in teaching the police of today that you are considered the enemy today, not a ali. I have met a lot of great cops, but a handful. Too many who hide behind a badge and abuse their authority.

So its not just about racism, its a entire problem of no trust in the police and fear of them. Thats a big problem.

posted by: Just saying! on January 31, 2012 7:48am Why is everyone pointing the finger at Gallo? Gallo didn’t do anything the Mayor didn’t allow him to do.So in all actuality It’s their Mayor who should resign or retire Not Gallo.

posted by: And the Band Played On on January 31, 2012 9:12am Unfortunately the town has not always made the best decisions when it comes to elected officials. I was thrilled with April as our mayor but was horrified at all of the sexist comments hurled at her for four years. She did the right thing, she did her job. Good people, long time residents, want this to be an inclusive, diverse town. I’m disappointed Mr Cerrato’s comments may be the ones people believe represent our town. He and others, who thought a bunch of white men finally had control back, are sickened to discover it is not going to be business as usual. Thank you April. Thank you online media! There are lots of naysayers trying to reduce this to a game of semantics. It’s not. We know we have a problem and we need to recognize we seem to be incapable of fixing it ourselves. When the feds come in to investigate, this town is using NATIONAL tax dollars. You have a say in this, all of you. This town needs your support to do the right thing. Gallo being out of the way is a start, but we need new leadership. We are relying on good reporting, accurate and fair, and good citizens from everywhere to support change in our little town. We need you.

posted by: streever Just Sayin!

There is a lot of context here. I agree that Maturo absolutely should resign. The profiling has been happening for a long time, however, under Chief Gallo. I’m sure Gallo is a great guy—even a good person—but he has a very different view of acceptable than federal laws or society in general. Most people don’t want to be profiled. If I told you that a number of italian terrorists had cropped up, and East Haven police were going to be routinely pulling over ALL Italians, people would be up in arms. However, this is how Gallo treats Latinos, because of the federal immigration problem. He has directed his officers to treat Latinos as criminals for years. Maturo ran and won BECAUSE OF Gallo—Gallo and his officers door knocked, got out the vote, and heavily supported Maturo, because Maturo had promised to “undo” the suspension that former Mayor Capone had Gallo under. Gallo supported Joe because Joe supported Gallo. Because of that, both should go—or both should welcome federal oversight and a revamp of the policies that enabled them to profile latinos.

posted by: NH Resident on January 31, 2012 11:23pm Love it! Adger for East Haven!! I mean, she can do better, but wouldn’t that be great.