Former Connecticut Cop Given Prison Sentence After Arresting Priest Who Was Recording Him

Former
Connecticut cop David Cari, who was filmed by a priest as he
harassed an Ecuadorian immigrant in 2009, has been given a 30-month
prison sentence after having been convicted of civil rights
abuses.

From
Photography is Not a Crime:

An East Haven cop who claimed he was in fear for his life when
he arrested a priest for video recording him as he bullied an
Ecuadorian immigrant in a convenience store was sentenced to
30 months in prison Tuesday, indicating that justice prevails
every once in a while.

Even if the cop was allowed to retire with a full pension.

The 2009 incident, which went viral, opened a federal
investigation against David Cari and several other officers,
revealing that they were engaging in an ongoing harassment campaign
against the immigrants living in that community.

But it was only because Father James Manship filed a federal
complaint after his charges were dropped two weeks after his
arrest.

And it was only because it was all caught on video.

The
New Haven Register reports that audio from the footage
shot by Rev. James Manship discredited Cari’s arrest report:

Lima Church in Fair Haven and the man whose 26-second video
shotwhile inside an East Haven general store proved to be the most
crucial piece of evidence in the government’s case against
Cari.

“Never did I think that video would get us to where we are
today,” he said outside the courthouse, after Thompson handed down
Cari’s 30-month sentence.

But it was precisely the audio of Manship’s February 2009
video that proved to discredit the arrest report Cari filed
when he slapped handcuffs on the priest for filming him and
Spaulding in the process of ordering employees at the
Hispanic-owned My Country Store to remove more than 70 license
plates mounted on the back wall.

Reason‘s Jacob Sullum wrote about the case and the
harassment suffered by East Haven’s Latino residents in
January 2012.  

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