More than race at center of controversy
History, money, poor decisions go against Windsor’s reputation
Back in 1907, when Col. E.M. Morrison wrote up a “brief history” of Isle of Wight County — one of Virginia’s eight original shires, you know — he said the people of the town of Windsor “are well known for their hospitality.”
Not anymore.
The town of Windsor, incorporated in 1902, first straddled the Norfolk & Western Railroad, then some years later straddled Route 460, after it was designated for auto travel from all the way from coastal Virginia to Kentucky.
Straddling often leads to trouble, it seems.
Too many people just passing through and, frequently, too quickly.
Too many locals seeing an opportunity.
It plays out in many ways, and we’ve just seen the more dramatic version in the incident of the Army Lt. Caron Nazario and Officer Joe “ride the lightning” Gutierrez, now late of the Windsor Police Department.
I suppose it doesn’t help much to point out it used to be much worse, but it was.
In 1925, just 20 miles further west, in Waverly, occurred one of the most infamous lynchings in the history of Virginia — an incident of staggering violence and collective madness — when a mob of 2,000 shot, lynched and burnt James Jordan, a young Black man accused of attacking a white woman.
The event fueled great public alarm and motivated state officials to get more vigilant and prosecutorial about mob violence, the occurrence of which was common in the South in that era, though relatively less common in Virginia.
Of course, all that seems a long time ago, but perhaps not long enough for Southside officials to fail to think long and carefully about who they put in uniform to enforce local ordinances and state traffic laws.
History matters. It always does. And it has a way of visiting scenes of new crimes and says, oh, well, we’ve been here before, haven’t we?
In other words, Gutierrez never should have been out there, ever. It’s just too damn familiar, with echoes of Officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates) bellowing “On your feet, boy!” at Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) in the railway station waiting room of Sparta, Mississippi.
Only the exteriors of “In the Heat of the Night” weren’t filmed in mid-1960s Sparta, Mississippi, but in Sparta, Illinois, where local attitudes were regarded as more accepting of the movie’s bi-racial theme.
We’ve made progress since then, right? Only Gutierrez went far to putting the kibosh, pepperspray and all, to that notion.
It would be a mistake, however, to evaluate Windsor law enforcement enthusiasms only on racial terms. There’s also stupidity here of a thoroughly more ecumenical nature and there’s plenty of history to that, too.
In the 1940s, for instance, one Army Air Corps Capt. Gordon E. Morse, in his Buick sedan on his way north to Baltimore, passed through a small North Carolina community and got pulled over for exceeding the local speeding limit.
That was my father, in uniform, and when he didn’t have the cash on hand to pay the fine, those god-fearin’ Tar Heels escorted him to the town jail for the night. He told that story for the next 60 years or so and, no question, he was still mad about it.
Revenue. Many have tales to tell of being at the wallet-producing end of this game.
And the game still gets played.
The city of Hopewell turned a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 295 into the “Million-Dollar Mile” after collecting $1.8 million from tickets in a single year. The AAA called it one of the worst speed traps in the nation.
There are others. Wherever speed limits abruptly change, there potentially awaits a sanctioned soul eager to make you pay for not noticing. Welcome to Windsor.
Many public officials and many official entities have declared their interest in Windsor, including the FBI. A lawsuit beckons. I am told that the town has insurance and a good thing.
Questions of race quickly muscled their way to the front of the Windsor fiasco and that topic will demand some resolution. The Windsor hierarchy, such as it is, appears contrite and thoughtful. It should remain in that posture.
At the same time, it may be worth broadening this out some and discovering what police standards apply in small communities, the relative resources for local law enforcement and the motive pertaining thereto.
There’s a hint — more than a hint, really — that rural economics may lie at the heart of Windsor’s travails. If Virginia can measure that with more precision, some good may yet come of this.
After writing editorials for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co., the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.