By David Moran
The Hartford Courant
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The city’s police department has begun an internal affairs investigation after “racially-charged letters” were found on at least eight vehicles in the department’s parking lot last month, the second time in less than a year that racist letters have been found at the headquarters, according to city and police officials.
The department said in a statement Friday eight letters that appear to target “certain current and former Bridgeport police officers due to their race” were found on the windshield of vehicles, including police cars, in the Congress Street parking lot around 4 a.m. on Sept. 27.
The letter, a list of a half dozen names under the heading “White Power Emerald Society,” is written on department letterhead bearing the name of Police Chief Joseph Gaudett Jr. and containing the alleged signature of Assistant Chief James Nardozzi.
(Bridgeport PD Image)
Nardozzi said Friday that he did not signed any such letter.
“I am disgusted that someone would make such a hateful statement and falsify my signature to the document,” he said in a statement. “I did not write or sign this letter nor have I made any statements that even remotely reflect the sentiments of this letter. The allegations are ludicrous and sickening.”
Gaudett said he has also notified the state’s attorney’s office of the letter.
“The city and the police department have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination of any kind, especially that of a racial nature,” Gaudett said in a statement. “We will investigate the letter’s authenticity, motive and every part of the development and distribution of it.”
Similar letters on department letterhead were found inside mailboxes at department headquarter’s in February. They have a similar tone and also contain the words “white power.”
“These black officers belong in the toilet,” the letters stated, according to a Feb. 18 Associated Press article, and focused mainly on then Bridgeport Officer Clive Higgins, who was acquitted in January of this year of violating a person’s civil rights in connection with the 2011 beating of a Hispanic suspect that was captured on video.
Two other Bridgeport officers, Elson Morales and Joseph Lawlor, pleaded guilty to the civil rights violations and were sentenced to three months in jail. Both resigned from the department.
Higgins is one of the six names mentioned in the September letters. He resigned from the department in July while still on administrative leave as the department investigated his role in the May 2011 incident.
State and local police said an investigation into who distributed the February letters was still ongoing Friday and declined further comment.
Chuck Paris, president of Bridgeport’s police union, said he wrote to the state and local police as well as Mayor Bill Finch several months ago asking for an update on the investigation into the February letters and received no response. He called the finding of the new letters “deplorable.”
“Obviously, we want to find out whose doing it,” Paris said. “We’re concerned that the first investigation hasn’t been completed as of yet. We’re anxious to see the results and clear are officers names.”
Copyright 2015 The Hartford Courant