Editorial: CT communities should push cost of illegal vehicle rallies onto the riders
Police organizations around the state face it: large, organized groups practicing dangerous, reckless and illegal driving.
We’ve all seen it, and it can include big groups of motorcycles and ATVs, with riders racing each other and around cars, practicing wheelies and creating a lot of noise and disruption.
An example of this occurred in September, when about 100 people blocked an intersection in Wethersfield as they did dangerous maneuvers, including doughnuts, revving vehicles and playing loud music with flashing lights — all of which prompted several neighbors to fear for their safety, police in that community said. Of course, when officers arrived, the participants scattered.
The city of Hartford knows the problem well, with it exacerbated during the pandemic.
Officials in Hartford report seeing a decline in this type of behavior this year, but part of that is clearly attributable to the amount of effort and money they had to put into combating the problem.
That included adding drones to find four-wheelers, dirt bikes and stolen cars (among other uses for drones such as missing person’s cases and keeping an eye on large events).
The drones are intended to make the streets safer, including by having the devices follow scofflaws rather than having officers do high-speed pursuits. Such pursuits are less common already as the state, through the Police Officer Standards and Training Council, in 2019 restricted when police statewide can chase cars and trucks.
“The use of drones makes our streets safer,” Hartford police Lt Aaron Boisvert told The Courant.
We agree that such pursuits can be dangerous and that when used correctly the drones are a safer option.
Hartford had to spend a lot of money for that technology but was lucky enough to have $2.5 million in state money to invest in it, including cameras and software.
But not every community in Connecticut will have that state funding to spend, nor will they have the extra tax dollars to focus on ridding their street of wanton disregard for other motorists.
Despite the cost, police in some communities are boosting patrols and looking for new ways to catch scofflaw motorists.
Wethersfield police Lt. Michael Wren said his department would boost patrols in the area where the riders had gathered. Despite past incidents of groups of cars, motorcycles or ATVs grouping up and causing traffic issues, the September incident was “the first time we’ve seen this amount of cars organized like this in town,” Wren told The Courant.
That is not a harbinger of better behavior on the part of the riders or for Wethersfield taxpayers catching a break in having to pay their department to patrol for people who are purposely breaking the law and creating havoc.
Police have said many of the drivers belong to clubs that set up these events — even determining the strategies for blocking traffic to create racing space on highways.
There needs to be a regional or even statewide effort to crack down on actions that by many accounts are considered dangerous and that could include wider use of drones and sharing of investigative intelligence about where the gatherings might take place.
But there also is another way to hit scofflaws where it hurts.
In New Haven, the Board of Alders two years ago raised the fines for riding illegally to match the state maximum with a $1,000 infraction for the first offense, and then $1,500 to over $2,000.
New Haven police told The Courant that, in the first 10 months of 2021, the department issued 13 first offense fines.
Other communities that face mayhem imposed by people who have no right to cause dangerous disruptions should consider imposing the same level of fines.
Those wheelies might not be so much fun if they cost $1,000 each.
Editorial: Why we should never forget Alex Jones
Maybe an apocalypse really is coming.
That’s what Alex Jones would have us believe. That so many people swallowed his vile manipulations feels like some version of a functioning society coming to an end.
So it came as a relief when Jones finally did something this week he should have done all along: He shut up.
But while Jones refused to testify as his defamation awards trial drew to a close in Waterbury, we retain little hope that he will stop fueling an audience with an unsettling interest in conspiracy theories.
Out of the courtroom, Jones bemoaned his inability to explain himself while the Sandy Hook families “can make claims without proof.”
Those surreal words are from a posting on his “InfoWars” website, so take them for what they’re worth. “InfoWars” quotes him saying “What they got was their publicity stunt for their charities and their 73 million dollars in Remington, and the cash machine squeezing money out of the dead children’s bodies.”
Nearly a decade after 26 children and educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, their families are still subjected to such hurtful rubbish from Jones.
“Alex Jones” no longer is a noun, but a synonym. It’s shorthand for anyone who broadcasts absurd fabrications that fuel suffering. He built a fortune on the graves of children, and despite how much he is forced to pay, we have no doubt he will continue to seek ways to mangle the definition of free speech.
The arrival of Dec. 14 will reflexively revive memories of a day the American landscape seemed to change. We should pause to mourn the victims and reflect on the successes and failures in enacting gun reform and efforts to enhance mental health services.
But, as much as we would like to, we should not forget Alex Jones.
For reasonable human beings, it’s hard to fathom that any person can perpetuate actions that cause family members of a slain child to receive death threats. But Jones does not work alone. His lies about Sandy Hook being a hoax perpetuated by actors posing as parents should never have found an audience. Yet he tapped a mine of millions of followers. He profited though willing advertisers. Many will now likely drift off in search of other conspirators. Some will cling to Jones out of some depraved loyalty.
Alex Jones proved there is profit in The Big Lie. Eventually, even such untruths have trouble hiding in the light of a courtroom. But it’s become easy to cloak lies in the labyrinth of the internet without consequences.
Taking Jones’ money away feels akin to depriving a child of a favorite toy as a penalty for lying. Jones eventually conceded the Sandy Hook tragedy “was 100% real.” Just a few days ago, he said “I’m done saying I’m sorry.”
That hardly sounds like someone who learned from his punishment.
It took the grit of a few parents to publicly expose and shame Jones. The reward they deserve is that The Big Lie in America becomes diminished. It would be fitting if some good parenting could help heal a nation.
Editorial: People talking the loudest about ‘lies’ might not have their facts straight
The word “lie” gets thrown around an awful lot in politics. That certainly was the case during and after Tuesday night’s first gubernatorial debate between Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, Republican former Gov. Paul LePage and independent Sam Hunkler.
As Tuesday night proved, sometimes the people talking the loudest about supposed lies don’t have their facts straight themselves. Take LePage’s pronouncement in response to Mills mentioning his support of former President Donald Trump’s move to ban foreign travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Mills said that Lepage “joined the Trump administration’s effort to, for instance, ban people of the Muslim faith from coming to states like Maine, or to anywhere in this country. I did not agree with that policy. He joined the Trump administration in that regard.”
“Janet Mills. You are a liar,” LePage responded confidently. “I have not joined and prevented Muslims from going to work ever. I did not join the Trump administration in any immigration.”
But here’s the thing: He supported that policy from the Trump administration. He was clear about that at the time. So Mills wasn’t lying, even if her use of the word “join” could be seen as imprecise and her description could imply that the Trump administration banned all Muslims rather than people from seven specific majority-Muslim countries.
LePage vocally supported Trump’s order at the time. That happened. There’s past reporting about it readily available. There’s a tweet from LePage himself at the time.
“AG Mills speaks for herself on immigration order. I fully support @realDonaldTrump exec action to protect all Americans,” LePage tweeted in February of 2017 after then-Attorney General Mills joined with other states to oppose Trump’s order in court.
Maybe LePage disagreed with how Mills described these past events. That is open for debate. What is not open for debate, however, is that he was wrong when he stridently proclaimed Mills to be a liar about something that did in fact occur.
Another area of disagreement between Mills and LePage Tuesday night centered around state budgets. LePage criticized Mills for the passage of a “majority budget” on a strict party line basis. Mills countered to emphasize that lawmakers reached a bipartisan budget agreement this spring. Nobody was lying, it appears that they were just talking past each other.
The budget process is complicated in a way that doesn’t condense well to one-minute debate answers. But LePage is correct that legislative Democrats passed a two-year budget without Republican support and Mills signed it. That happened in March of 2021. We remember, because we criticized that move and worried that it would poison bipartisan relationships in Augusta.
Thankfully, our fears turned out to be overblown, as Democrats and Republicans later worked together to craft a supplemental budget, which adjusts state spending based on changes in revenue and other considerations. That latest budget adjustment was passed in April 2022 with more than two-thirds support in the Legislature, including support from both Democrats and Republicans.
So yes, the most recent budget was passed in strong bipartisan fashion as emphasized by Mills. But LePage is also right that the underlying biennial budget, passed in 2021, was approved without Republican support; that is a fact.
It is also a fact that in a radio interview shortly after the 2020 presidential election, LePage said that “this is clearly a stolen election.” So while it was encouraging to hear him say Tuesday night that he believes President Joe Biden won, it also was quite the stretch for him to say “I’ve never rejected any election, including the 2020 presidential election.”
This is just a small cross section from Tuesday’s debate, but it should serve as a reminder for voters: Beware sweeping claims that someone else is lying. The truth is usually more complicated.
Editorial: An early morning phone call, a tragic decision by DOC
Adam Howe’s life ends in an avoidable chain of events that should prompt multiple probes.
Adam T. Howe is dead — a victim not just of the mental illness that eventually claimed his life but of a tragic set of circumstances that demand investigation.
From the bureaucrat at Bridgewater State Hospital who refused to admit Howe to the state’s most secure facility for mentally ill prisoners, to those in charge of the county jail with the worst reputation in the state for jail suicides, there are plenty of questions to go around about a death that should have been prevented.
In fact, if the mental health system — both inside the criminal justice umbrella and outside it — really worked here, it could have saved two lives: that of Howe, who died in an apparent suicide in a jail cell Sunday, and that of his mother, whom Howe was accused of killing on Friday.
“The system is broken, not only in the criminal justice milieu but for people with mental health issues who do not commit crimes,” Michael O’Keefe, district attorney for the Cape and Islands, told the Globe.
The problem of emergency room “boarding” of people in mental health crisis — patients stuck because there are no available treatment beds — is, as O’Keefe said, all too real in both worlds.
The 34-year-old Howe’s mental health issues dated back to at least 2020. By 2021, court records show, he was released to his mother’s custody while awaiting admission to an in-patient treatment center in Bourne.
Howe was charged with killing 69-year-old Susan Howe on Friday and setting her body on fire on the front lawn of her Truro home. Police took him into custody and then to Cape Cod Hospital where doctors warned that Howe was displaying “suicidal ideation.”
By 3 a.m. Saturday an on-call emergency judge, after listening to the doctor in charge of the emergency room and to the district attorney, ordered Howe to be involuntarily committed to Bridgewater, a facility run by the Department of Correction.
But the judge issued her order citing Section 12, which relates to civil commitments, rather than Section 15, which allows defendants in criminal cases to be hospitalized at Bridgewater for observation and evaluation for up to 20 days, or Section 18, which covers those already detained by a facility and in need of hospitalization for mental illness for up to 6 months.
O’Keefe told the Globe editorial board that a man who identified himself as the “supervisor on” at Bridgewater insisted “we don’t take 12s, we take 18s.”
“We talked to him several times,” O’Keefe added. “I talked to him twice. The judge was willing to talk to him directly. All we wanted was to put this guy in (Bridgewater) until his arraignment Monday.”
At that point a court clinician would see him and order him in for an evaluation.
A spokesman for DOC said in a statement, “There are protocols for emergency psychiatric hospitalizations determined by law, and the Department of Correction follows these procedures for commitments at all facilities, including Bridgewater State Hospital.”
Meanwhile, as O’Keefe described it, Howe is “shackled to a gurney” at the Cape hospital while State Police look for another option.
Barnstable County would have been the logical choice, but O’Keefe said State Police “couldn’t get ahold of anyone” in the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department.
The Bristol County Sheriff’s office offered up the Ash Street Jail in New Bedford, where, according to a spokesman for Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, Howe was placed on a security watch and checked on by a correction officer every 15 minutes. On Sunday afternoon, Howe was found dead in his cell, his airways clogged with wet toilet paper.
According to a 2018 New England Center for Investigative Reporting investigation, at least 14 men and women died by suicide in the Bristol County House of Correction between 2006 and 2016. Two more men died by suicide in 2017. And while Bristol County accounts for only 13% of all inmates housed in 13 county correction facilities, it accounted for more than a quarter of all suicides.
A number of lawsuits are already pending against the sheriff’s department, filed by families of those who died by suicide while in custody.
Hodgson’s track record, Howe’s apparent suicide included, deserves far more official scrutiny than it has gotten to date.
But then Howe didn’t belong there in the first place. He belonged at Bridgewater, a medium-security facility — one where clinical services are provided by Wellpath, a private, for-profit company under contract to the state.
And that raises the question of who actually said “no” to the judge and to O’Keefe in the middle of the night? Who refused to negotiate? And how far up the chain of command did the request go?
Ultimately the case provides powerful fodder for advocates who have long wanted Bridgewater taken away from DOC and turned over to the Department of Mental Health for a more humane approach to care.
A frustrated O’Keefe said, “I mean at 3 o’clock in the morning it seems to me they could have taken this guy in for three days” — days that might have made the difference between life and death.
As for violating “protocol,” the DA turned to the wisdom of Charles Dickens, adding, “Sometimes the law is an ass.” We don’t disagree.
We are dismayed by a news report based in Vermont that has been misconstrued and is now getting global attention.
The reports center around a transgender student who attends Randolph Union High School.
On Sept. 28, WCAX aired a report of a student volleyball player objecting to a transgender teammate’s use of a school locker room. According to published reports and the ACLU of Vermont, the story has been picked up by multiple news outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post and the British tabloid Daily Mail.
However, the superintendent of the Orange Southwest Supervisory District is actually investigating a complaint suggesting the trans student has been the target of a campaign of harassment, bullying and hazing.
The school district’s website was hacked this week and was flooded with transphobic messages. According to published reports, the school district shut down its website and social media accounts.
The Times Argus and Rutland Herald are choosing not to identify the student or the student’s family.
On Tuesday, the ACLU of Vermont released a statement expressing its support for the family of the student.
ACLU of Vermont Legal Director Lia Ernst wrote: “Reports of targeted harassment and bullying directed toward a trans student at Randolph Union Middle/High School are deeply upsetting and, unfortunately, all too common in Vermont and across the country.
“Trans people, especially trans youth, are under attack in this country. That includes denial of equal opportunity to participate in athletics and access locker rooms, restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity. It also includes the denial — and even criminalization — of critical medical care, as well as the horrific increase in acts of violence and murders of trans people, especially trans women of color,” Ernst wrote. “Let’s be clear: All trans students have a right to be free from discrimination and deserve to learn in environments where they feel safe in their gender identity and expression. Furthermore, it is the policy of the State of Vermont that harassment and bullying, including on the basis of gender identity, ‘have no place and will not be tolerated in Vermont schools.’”
Ernst ends the statement saying, “This incident should serve as a reminder that all schools have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that every student is safe, supported, and fully included in the school environment — and we have a shared responsibility to respond when trans youth are harmed to reassure them that their rights, dignity and humanity are not up for debate.”
In an interview with VTDigger, the mother of the transgender student, countered the interviewed student’s assertion that other team members objected to her daughter’s presence in the locker room, adding that the team has played and traveled harmoniously together for weeks.
The VTDigger article quotes Layne Millington, superintendent of the Orange Southwest Supervisory District, who confirmed that the school is investigating a complaint. He disputed the WCAX story that claimed the team was “banned” from the locker room after raising concerns with school administrators.
“The locker rooms were not shut down as a punishment or a consequence,” Millington told VTDigger. “They were shut down really to kind of ensure student safety while the investigation is conducted, and the shutdown applied equally to all the members of the girls volleyball team.”
According to VTDigger, WCAX’s news director, Roger Garrity, defended their coverage, stating he was “unaware of any factual errors in our reporting. …I can’t speak to the effects our reporting has had in the community, but I do understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic that can evoke strong emotions.”
We are grateful that schools across the state are taking seriously claims of harassment, bullying and hazing. We have heard about far too many incidents in recent years, even if they do not make it into newspapers, on to the TV news or into the stratosphere of cable news networks. School districts must deal with these issues, which can lead to far more serious problems down the line.
We appreciate that the ACLU stepped in and aptly condemned the allegations, the sensationalized news coverage, and has defended the rights of a marginalized individual.
In the VTDigger article, the parent of the student said the incident (and the media explosion that ensued) “just opened the floodgates and given permission to all the bigots.”
We hope that, if anything, what will come from this ugly moment are steps toward awareness, tolerance and compassion. Hate has no place in our society. It definitely has no place in our schools. We must fight for the rights of every person, and allow for every person’s unique potential.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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