Police Harassment and Abuse Cause Hispanics to Leave CT Town
Longstanding, extensive police harassment of Hispanics and Latinos in East Haven, CT appears to have triumphed. The wheels of justice grind so slowly that despite a Justice Department civil rights investigation, the commencement of a criminal investigation by the FBI, and a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by students at Yale, Hispanics are unable and unwilling to continue being subjected to the abuse, selling their homes and moving.
Santiago Malave, a probation officer who works in New Haven, says the racial abuse is so bad that he crosses the town line into East Haven only to go home. He and his wife are now preparing to sell their house and move, joining an exodus of Hispanics who say police have hassled them with traffic stops, false arrests and even jailhouse beatings.
It's not just a few rogue officers. It's a blatant systemic problem. [More...]
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