Police Action Out Of Bounds

 

The May 8 Courant editorial, “No Need For A New Law”, is astounding for its ringing tin ear.

 

A white West Hartford police officer prowled a Hartford neighborhood looking for a black man who, the officer wrongly believed, had violated a dubiously interpreted West Hartford ordinance.

 

Doug Glanville, a well-known black writer, announcer and sports figure, was shoveling snow at his Hartford home. Assuming that Glanville was involved in the West Hartford matter, the police officer, in an insulting manner, accosted him. The editorial writer concludes that, despite these facts, no law is needed to protect citizens from “gratuitous and inexcusable insult” by police officers.

 

The editorial then smugly recommends that Glanville, instead, should have given the officer his autograph. The editorial writer needs to attend sensitivity training in Baltimore.

 

Republished from The Hartford Courant.