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Bring Some Perspective

I wish to reply to the Feb. 16 letters [“Happening Here” by Carol Rizzolo and “Common, Shared Beliefs” by Laurie LaTerza] responding to my Feb. 2 letter “Question the Motives” dealing with hate crimes.

By letter of Jan. 19 [“This Simple Truth”], 12 members of the clergy from Madison and Guilford made the claim that there had been a “spike in hate crimes in recent days and months along the shoreline.” After checking with the police departments in Madison and Guilford, I learned that this was not the case.

I limited my inquiry to Madison and Guilford for two reasons: All the signees to that letter were from those towns, and it is the stated policy of Courier that letters to the editor offer a “uniquely local perspective on local issues.” By definition, that would seem to exclude Branford.

In his notes, the editor cited as an example of a hate crime the posting of Nazi graffiti in Branford last November. This statement is misleading for two reasons. The issue raised by the clergy is not whether hate crimes have occurred along the shoreline. The issue is whether or not there’s been an increase in such activity in the recent past. This point is never addressed by the editor.

I was a public defender for more than 40 years. All hate crimes laws in Connecticut require intent on the part of the perpetrator to intimidate or harass another person or group of people on the basis of race, religion, or other category of personal status. The posting of Nazi graffiti without evidence of such intent isn’t a hate crime. For this reason, incidents of this type are rarely (in my experience never) prosecuted as hate crimes.

I hope my comments will bring some perspective to this important matter.

David Egan

Guilford

Editor’s note: With a recent surge in local authors seeking to share their opinions on wide-ranging issues through a letter to the editor, the task of reserving the Courier’s letters forum to uniquely local perspectives has never been more challenging. In general, if the gist of a letter is not limited to the local community, we decline or edit out disqualifying material, though a local issue discussed in the context of state or national issues may qualify. The decision on the Jan. 19 letter “This Simple Truth” was fairly straightforward, however: The 12 local clergy members (6 of the 12 undersigned were from Guilford) were making an unusual, joint statement calling for action locally.