Father James Manship released video footage Thursday that contradicts an East Haven police report justifying his arrest.
Manship was arrested on Feb. 19 on misdemeanor charges while videotaping police officers in My Country Store, an East Haven business run by Ecuadorian immigrants. Manship pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming that he was recording an incident of police harassment, part of an alleged campaign of systematic intimidation and racial profiling perpetrated by East Haven police against Latinos. Manship’s attorneys recently secured the footage from the East Haven Police Department, which confiscated his video camera at the time of the arrest.
Manship and his supporters released the footage at a press event Thursday at the St. Rose of Lima Church in Fair Haven.
The video, taken by Father Manship (pictured), shows the seconds leading up to his arrest.
The footage appears to contradict a claim made by the East Haven police department in a police report that was withheld until 13 days after the incident. The police report, David Cari, one of two arresting officers, states that he didn’t know what the New Haven priest was holding. He wrote that he saw an “unknown shiny silver object” that Manship had “cupped” in his hands, and was afraid for his safety. Read the police report here.
The footage clearly shows that the arresting officers knew that Manship was holding a camera, not an “unknown shiny silver object.”
In the video, the Officer Cari twice refers to the object as a camera.
“Sir what are you doing? Is there a reason that you have a camera on me?” says Cari, in the video.
Father Manship is the head of St Rose of Lima Church, a Fair Haven parish made up almost entirely of immigrants from Latin America. The news of his arrest, first reported in this Independent story, has touched off a heated debate on race relations. At a widely publicized press conference following Manship’s court appearance last week, Latino business owners in East Haven spoke out about police harassment. Most recently, a Mass.-based white supremacist group delivered flyers to St. Rose and East Haven homes and Latino businesses.
East Haven business owners said on Thursday claimed that police harassment has increased since the news of the priest’s arrest broke. Marcia Chacon, owner of My Country Store, said that the window on the front door of her Branford home was broken on Monday by two bricks. Chacon again called for a meeting with East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon.
“Silver Object” Was No Mystery
Father Manship’s video footage of his arrest was presented to the media in a Thursday morning screening in the basement of St. Rose of Lima Church, on Blatchley Avenue. Flanked by over 20 supporters and backed by a portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe, St. Rose parish leader Angel Fernandez-Chavero explained how the video contradicts the police report.
Fernandez-Chavero (at right in photo) replayed the moment where Officer Cari, in the leather jacket, identifies the camera by name. The other officer in the video is Dennis Spaulding.
“They arrested him only after confirming he was videotaping,” charged Fernandez-Chavero.
The police report alleges that Father Manship concealed the fact that he was videotaping the officers, by cupping his hands over “a silver object.”
“Not knowing if Manship was holding a camera or a possible weapon this officer asked Manship to show me what was in his hands,” Cari’s report reads.
In direct contradiction of Cari’s claim, the video from Manship’s camera shows Officer Cari twice verbally identifying the “silver object” as a camera.
“Sir what are you doing? Is there a reason that you have a camera on me?” says Officer Cari, in the video.
“I’m taking a video of what’s going on here,” Manship replies.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, what I’m going to do with that camera,” Officer Cari says, as he walks around a shelving unit to approach the priest.
Father Manship’s responses to the officers were calm and non-threatening, Fernandez-Chavero argued as he showed the footage.
East Haven’s Attorney: Video “Clearly Inconclusive”
Contacted by phone, Attorney Hugh Keefe, representing the East Haven police department, said that the video doesn’t discredit the police report.
“The problem is we don’t know what happened prior to the video,” Keefe said.
Keefe said that prior to start of the video recording, the police officer had been unaware of what Manship was holding. “The issue is before that whether he was concealing something,” Keefe said.
The attorney called the video “clearly inconclusive.”
“It also doesn’t have a video camera on [Manship],” Keefe said. “You don’t know what the police were seeing.”
Keefe compared the situation to the videotaped beating of Rodney King, in which a jury acquitted the police officers involved, even after an apparently damning video was shown. The jury was convinced that the video wasn’t the whole story, Keefe explained.
Keefe said that Manship’s arrest occurred not because of any alleged concealment of what he was doing but because of his behavior once he was approached by Officer Cari. Cari’s report states that Manship started to fight with the officer when the officer asked to see what Manship was holding.
Keefe called for Matute and Chacon to turn over any footage of the arrest that was recorded by the My Country Store security cameras. “They ought to cough it up,” Keefe said.
Asked if the police had requested the security footage, Keefe said “I think so.”
Harassment Continues
Marcia Chacon, owner of My Country Store, said police harassment has only gotten worse since she spoke out about alleged racial profiling at a press conference last week. At the press event outside New Haven Superior Court, she recounted how the police wait for Latino customers to leave her business, then pull them over without cause.
“I did not know that I would have to pay a price for speaking out,” said Chacon, choking back tears in the basement of St. Rose on Thursday.
“The day after the press conference, my husband and I saw police cars waiting outside of the store in the middle of the night,” Chacon said in Spanish. When she and her husband, Wilfred Matute, drove out of the parking lot, they were immediately pulled over by East Haven police. The officer shouted at Matute and accused him of driving with a suspended license, Chacon said. The officer checked the couples’ licenses and the car’s registration and then told them to leave, without any explanation.
“We feel this was retaliation,” Chacon said. “We were both terrified. My husband was afraid he would be arrested for no reason.”
In another apparently retaliatory incident, Chacon said that two bricks were thrown through the front door of her Branford home. Chacon showed a cellphone camera photo of her broken windows.
Chacon said that she feels intimidated, and that police harassment is affecting her family, her business and her community. She said that East Haven Police Chief Len Gallo had visited her store to talk about her concerns, left his card, and told her to call him if she had any problems.
“We appreciate the chief of police coming to our store,” Chacon said. “But we need more than words.” Given the harassment that she feels she has received from the chief’s officers, “we don’t feel protected,” Chacon said.
Addressing the press, Chacon made three specific requests. She invited East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon to meet with East Haven Latinos at St. Rose of Lima Church, requested a meeting with East Haven police commissioners, and called for “concrete steps to end racial profiling in East Haven.”
Father Manship said that Mayor Capone Almon has not contacted him or Latino business owners. Capone Almon has not returned repeated calls for comment beginning last Wednesday.
Asked to respond to the allegations that police harassment has increased, Keefe said, “I have a very simple question: when was the last time anyone filed a complaint with any town official in East Haven” regarding police harassment of Latinos?
“None. Ever. No. None,” said Keefe, answering his own question.
“It’s one thing to have Father Manship slander the people of East Haven… It’s another to produce evidence of that,” Keefe said.
Manship has said that he was in the process of compiling evidence of police harassment before he was arrested by the police.