Opponents of New Haven’s immigrant-friendly IDs threatened to kill a top city official and attached her name to obscene web sites, the city’s police chief told a state panel Monday afternoon.
Chief Francisco Ortiz was testifying before the state Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), which is hearing requests to release the names, addresses and photos of people who have signed up for the Elm City Resident Card.
Ortiz (pictured at the hearing before he spoke) described reviewing “highly disturbing,” profane and threatening emails sent to city Community Services Director Kica Matos for her role in crafting the ID card that New Haven began issuing last year.
“Someone should kill her,” a message said. “She should be killed.” One message, according to Ortiz, said Matos “should be put to death because of treason.”
“She’s a very courageous woman, one of the most courageous I’ve ever met,” the chief said.
The city police investigated the threats along with the FBI, Ortiz said. No arrests were made.
They also examined a case of “Google bombing,” which Ortiz described for FOIC hearing Commissioner Sherman D. London. Opponents attached Matos’ name to web sites with pornographic and violent messages, then registered enough hits to those sites to have them show up prominently in Google searches for Matos’ name.
Ortiz testified that Mayor John DeStefano, too, received threats of harm and other disturbing calls, letters, and emails.
The point of Ortiz’s testimony: If the FOIC grants the request that ID cardholders’ names are released, people might get hurt. He said fear pervades the Latino immigrant community over possible retribution from ID card opponents.
“If these names are released, there is no question in my mind it will put individuals’ lives in harm’s way,” Ortiz said. “We should not allow it to happen”
Ortiz echoed the assessment of the state Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security (DEMHS), which has asked the FOIC not to order the information released in the interest of protecting public safety.
In addition to the possibility of attacks on revealed cardholders, both Ortiz and DEMHS mentioned the ID card program’s aim in part of encouraging immigrants to cooperate with police. Ortiz said two immigrants have been stabbed to death in robberies; he said immigrants are often targeted for robberies because attackers know they hesitate to contact the cops, and because immigrants without bank accounts often carry large amounts of cash. (The cards are designed in part to help undocumented workers open bank accounts.)
Journalist Chris Powell (pictured) of the Manchester Journal-Inquirer — one of the two people requesting that the FOIC order release of the information — asked Ortiz if he considered those incidents hate crimes or robberies.
“These murderers aren’t followers of Dustin Gold rampaging through the streets of Fair Haven? These are robberies?” Powell asked.
“Robberies,” Ortiz responded.
Dustin Gold heads the Community Watchdog Project, the most visible group opposing the ID card program. Gold is the other complainant, along with Chris Powell, before the FOIC in this case.
Questioned On Hate Group Ties
Monday morning at the hearing, Dustin Gold himself was answering questions about his group’s affiliations with extremist groups.
Steven Strom, representing DEMHS, read aloud an anonymous handwritten letter sent to Mayor DeStefano’s office about the city’s launching of the ID card.
Gold testified that his group’s goals are to “abolish illegal immigration in Connecticut, beginning with New Haven”; and to “protect our rights to be Americans.”
“Dear Mayor,” began the July 31 anonymous letter to the mayor’s office.
“Maybe you can explain to me how this dirty race of people from Mexico can be driven by their own Good can force a good portion of there population out of there country and in the Sovereign Nation of the United States…
“An I can’t wait for the rioting breaks out, I have my Automatic Rifle ready to go an won’t hesitate to use it to kill These Rodents.”
Strom then asked Gold if he “realizes” that his group’s website (currently offline and undergoing renovation) “provokes” letters like this one.
Carla P. Maresca, a Philadelphia attorney representing Gold, characterized that suggestion as an outrageous assertion of guilt by association and assault on free speech.
“For all we know,” she said, “the mayor’s office could have written this… It could be someone crazy from outside the state.”
Gold said he and his group had nothing to do with the anonymous letter.
Guilt By Association?
Another attorney, Debra Torres, questioned Gold about his group’s affiliation with the John Birch Society, a far-right nativist conspiracy group active since the mid-20th century Red Scare. (Among its theories: Fluoridation of water was a Communist plot.) Torres represents the class of ID cardholders.
Gold confirmed that he lists the Birch Society as one of dozens of “natural allies” on the CWP web site. He and Torres went back and forth about his public claims that “the big guys” from the Birch Society and another extremist group, the Minutemen, were going to participate in an anti-ID card rally he helped organize.
Discussion of the John Birch Society “bears no relevance to Mr. Gold’s” freedom of information request for names, photos and addresses of cardholders, insisted his attorney, Maresca.
“If this material is released to Mr. Gold and Mr. Powell, it becomes available to anyone,” Torres responded. “That could include members of the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.” Given that the groups work with Gold’s CWP, that increases the likelihood that violent extremists would gain control of cardholders identities, she argued.
Her argument failed to impress Sherman D. London, the FOIC commissioner running the hearing.
“You could list a million organizations around the country that could have access” to information once it becomes public, London said.
He said “there’s no evidence” to back up Torres’s claims.
“Narrowing” The Request
Early in the hearing, Gold’s attorneys sought to modify his original FOI request to the city. Maresca said Gold was “narrowing” the request by eliminating certain groups of cardholders and therefore making it easier for the city to comply.
The government’s lawyers responded that the revisions would actually more prominently identify a group of immigrants or people with Spanish surnames – and therefore make them more likely targets of retribution from anti-ID card activists.
Commissioner London declined to grant Gold’s revision request.
Raising The Dead
Monday afternoon, Dustin Gold continued a campaign he began earlier this year to revisit a murder case that has been cited as a reason for launching the ID program.
In that case, an undocumented worker was murdered while trying to fend off a mugger. Police said he was carrying cash, had no bank account. Advocates said the case pointed up the need to help immigrants to open accounts and feel comfortable cooperating with police.
Click here to read a story about that case.
Gold on Monday claimed that the incident in fact did not involve a robbery. He has previously cited this as his proof: The killer, a repeat felon, denied at his sentencing, as he sought to avoid a long jail term, that he had robbed the victim.
And the state dropped the robbery charge, leaving just the manslaughter charge.
“There was no robbery,” Gold charged. “The robbery charge was dropped for manslaughter.”
“I would assume,” Commissioner London responded, “when a man is killed, they go for the killing, not a robbery” charge.
In any case, London ruled that the line of questioning should be discontinued.
Priest On The Spot
The most spirited, at time tense, moments took place during the testimony of Father Jim Manship of New Haven’s St. Rose of Lima Church. Manship’s church is at the center of the immigrant community, many of whose members worship there.
Manship testified about fears his congregants feel about possible retribution if they’re identified as cardholders.
That led to a line of cross-examination from Attorney Maresca. She noted that 50 stores in town accept the ID card for doing business as a debit card.
“You don’t know if there’s a crazy vigilante snapping pictures to acquire info” about cardholders that her client is seeking through the FOI process, she said. “People may have ulterior motives working at any of the 50 establishments that may have access to the card.”
Maresca also called “irrelevant” Manship’s stories about being harassed and called a Communist. “Nancy comments, vitriol, threats made again public figures” like Manship, the mayor or Kica Matos are of a different category from “speculation about threats to private figures” who have ID cards, she argued.
Manship argued that his constituents come from countries where priests who are called Communists are targeted for murder.
A CWP supporter in the audience offered his own verdict when Manship made his case. “Shut your mouth!” he said.
As the six-hour hearing wore down, this spectator evolved into a one-man Greek chorus to the priest. When Manship showed his Elm City Resident card to the lawyers at the table as part of his testimony, he mentioned that he’s about to visit Ecuador. “Yeah, that’ll work in Ecuador!” the Greek chorus chimed in. “Show it when you get in…”
“He’s making me sick!” he commented later, shifting back and forth in his seat.
“They want to go to the library,” he seethed, switching his focus to immigrants who obtain ID cards. “They want to go the beach. They want people to know who they are.”
Disclosure: The city planned to call the reporter of this story (me) to testify briefly at Monday’s hearing about hateful and threatening comments that readers have submitted to the Independent in connection with immigration articles. Time ran out before the testimony could be taken.