Ex-Bridgeport cop arrested in racist letter investigation

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BRIDGEPORT — Nine months after a racist letter was circulated in the Bridgeport Police Department, two investigations have found what authorities say was a conspiracy to falsely portray racial hatred in the department.

A black former officer, who claimed to be a target of the letter, was arrested Wednesday and the head of the police training academy and president of a minority police organization was placed on paid leave.

Clive Higgins, who was cleared by a federal jury earlier this year of police brutality charges despite a video showing him stomping a prone suspect in Beardsley Park in 2011, surrendered at State Police Troop I in Bethany on Wednesday morning. He was charged with second-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor, and released on a promise to appear in court pending arraignment in state Superior Court on Dec. 16.

Higgins, a 13-year veteran, resigned from the department in July after being questioned by investigators.

Lt. Lonnie Blackwell, president of the Bridgeport Guardians, was relieved of his command of the training academy and placed on administrative leave with pay by Police Chief Joseph Gaudett pending possible firing.

Higgins, 50, told both the city Office of Internal Affairs and the State Police that Blackwell told him to write the letter.

“It’s disappointing,” said Sgt. Charles Paris, head of the police union. “But hopefully this will clarify some questions about our membership. We have hard-working men and women in the department and our sole purpose is to protect the residents of the city of Bridgeport.”

The racist letter was typed on city letterhead and distributed through the Police Department and began and ended with “White Power,” a term coined by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party in the late 1960s and ’70s. It complained that Higgins didn’t belong in the Police Department.

It went on to make negative comments about African-American officers.

Gaudett requested that the state police investigate where the letter came from after the local chapter of the NAACP demanded a probe.

“The NAACP will schedule a meeting for further discussion with the Bridgeport Police Department and do more data searching before we comment,” said George Mintz, head of the local chapter of the NAACP. “At this point, we only know what has been published in the newspaper.”

The city’s Office of Internal Affairs began its own investigation of the letter and produced a report that had sat on Gaudett’s desk for seven weeks without any action being taken.

Senior police sources said last week Gaudett called Blackwell to his office to discipline him, but at the last minute outgoing Mayor Bill Finch’s chief of staff, Adam Wood, called the chief and told him to hold off on disciplining Blackwell until after Finch left office. The sources said Assistant Chief James Nardozzi angrily stormed out of Gaudett’s office at the delay.

Nardozzi declined comment. Finch were available for comment. Higgins and Blackwell could not be reached for comment.

“Mayor Finch made clear from the outset of this investigation that it was important for the state, who could perhaps be most impartial, to fully investigate this very serious allegation,” said Wood. “The state was given all evidence that the city has yet to issue findings. He continues to believe it is appropriate for the state to act first which is why he instructed me to speak with Chief Gaudett.”

In an excerpt of the city’s OIA report obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media, investigators state Higgins told them he had written the racist hate letter on the orders of Blackwell.

Higgins told investigators he was in a “vulnerable state” after winning his federal court case related to the Beardsley Park stomping. After being approached by Blackwell to write the hate letter, he felt he was following the orders of a superior officer, according to the excerpt.

“It’s not easy looking at a superior officer,” investigators quoted Higgins as telling them, according to the excerpt. “He’s telling you to do things, somehow you feel like you want to do, but it’s almost like listen when you — if you do this, you gotta be in it all the way, you know, halfway, you have to be in it all the way, that’s how the approach was. You do this, you got to be all the way. So, like no turning back.”

On Feb. 9, Higgins claimed he found the letter in his mailbox. He subsequently filed a police report stating that after the discovery he was “In fear for his life,” and immediately contacted Blackwell. He states in the report that Blackwell told him to get his belongings and “Remove himself from the dangerous environment there.”

State police later met with Higgins, according to the arrest warrant affidavit, and pointed out that minutes before he claimed he found the hate letter he is seen on surveillance video typing out a letter on a department computer, printing it out and then making copies.

The letter he is seen typing appears to be the same letter he claims he found, the affidavit states.

“Higgins looked at the photographs and began rubbing and shaking his head. Higgins then admitted that it was in fact the hate letter he claimed to have found in his mailbox,” the affidavit states.

Asked by state police why he would have done that, “Higgins then stated to investigators that Blackwell told him he should write a letter to bring attention to the department with respect to ongoing racial complaints,” the affidavit states.

In interviews with the state police and city OIA, Blackwell denied he told Higgins to write the letter.