The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Police response to CT Capitol spitting incident raises questions of equity
A recent incident at the state Capitol in which a white woman allegedly spat on a Black protester has become a rallying point for activists and officials questioning the adequacy of a police response the protester called “nonchalant.”
The incident and its aftermath, which occurred a few hours before a mob at a massive rally of Trump supporters stormed the nation’s Capitol Jan 6, show Connecticut — like the rest of the country – has a problem with racism, they said.
Keren Prescott, the woman who allegedly was spat on, filed a formal complaint Monday against the State Capitol Police Department alleging officers failed to act on her repeated attempts to get their attention in the wake of the incident, initially letting the woman responsible walk away.
Police ultimately issued the woman, identified as 44-year-old New Fairfield resident Yuliya Gilshteyn, a summons for breach of peace. They are looking to press further charges, according to Officer Scott Driscoll, spokesman for the department, who said he was told officers “immediately took action” when they learned what happened to Prescott by investigating the matter.
“We have to deal with every situation, and in that situation we were protecting a lot of people at a protest and rally,” he said, adding that there were some 500 demonstrators in Hartford that day.
The incident involving Gilshteyn drew the attention of state legislators, including Sen. Saud Anwar, D-East Hartford, and Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven. Both said they were disgusted by what happened, which was captured by News 8.
Ioannis Kaloidis, Gilshteyn’s attorney, said his client was “extremely apologetic, remorseful, upset with herself.”
“This was out of character for her, this is not something she has ever done. She’s never been in trouble before with the law,” he said. “She’s hoping to be able to do anything she can to make this right at the appropriate time.”
Porter and Anwar also said they intend to seek answers about the police response.
In the minutes immediately after the incident, Prescott – who told a reporter she has asthma and multiple sclerosis – and others repeatedly called for a response from law enforcement, according to the video.
At least two officers are visible in the background of the frame.
Prescott filed a complaint over the police response because there were “too many instances where they just refused to validate me, acknowledge me,” she said.
Several minutes after the incident, two officers began speaking to Prescott directly about what happened, the footage shows. A half-hour later, after protesters located Gilshteyn and got the attention of law enforcement, police confronted Gilshteyn, per another Facebook video.
“We were the ones looking for her, not anybody else,” said Alyssa Suitter, a Black Lives Matter supporter who said she helped search for the woman to make sure she did not leave.
Prescott said she met with Capitol police Chief Luiz Casanova to discuss her complaint and found the meeting “constructive and informative.” They told her some officers did not immediately respond to the incident because they had been ordered to hold the line, she said.
But she still feels the situation would have been handled differently had she been white, she said, contending there should be a protocol in place whereby some officers can provide support to victims while others hold the line.
Casanova did not return an email request to confirm details of his conversation with Prescott.
‘If I was a white woman’
Prescott is a Manchester resident who founded PowerUp CT, an organization that seeks “to amplify voices within marginalized communities, cultivate spaces that drive health promotion and civic engagement among constituents, and advocate for social, legislative, and meaningful change for the oppressed,” according to the website for its Manchester branch.
She went to Hartford with a friend Wednesday to urge the state government to declare racism a public health crisis.
Most of the demonstrators in the state Capitol that day came for different reasons.
Some carried Trump flags, others “thin blue line” flags in support of police. Many, including Gilshteyn, had signs opposing mandatory vaccinations.
Prescott and others saw the spitting incident as an attack motivated by racism, and a law enforcement response influenced by it.
When asked for comment, Driscoll said, “at the Capitol police, we in this past year have had over 90 rallies, and we take a lot of pride in treating people with respect and dignity.”
In her Facebook live video, Prescott made her feelings clear: “if I was a white woman, they would have arrested her,” she said.
Prescott said Gilshteyn only became agitated after Prescott began yelling “Black lives matter.”
A back-and-forth between Prescott and a woman, whose face is not visible, can be heard in the Facebook video.
After that woman, whom Prescott identified as the person who spat on her, told her to “talk about Black-on-Black crime,” Prescott countered, “There is no such thing as Black-on-Black crime. … Do you call it white-onwhite crime?”
Prescott then asked Gilshteyn, who was unmasked and appeared to be carrying a baby, to back up, according to the News8 video. That’s when Gilshteyn is accused
of spitting on her.
“You have to have a lot of hate and anger … to do something like that, especially in the midst of a pandemic,” Anwar said.
The state senator said he has known Capitol police to be professional.
But in this case, Prescott felt “they were not listening and believing when she was complaining,” he said. “I want to know why that was the case and try to understand” if the perception is accurate.
For Porter, it was Prescott’s account of the police response she found most disturbing.
“The first thing I thought about was if I had done to that white woman what she did to Keren, I probably would have got taken down to the ground,” she said.
Porter planned to ask for an investigation of the incident.
Questions over charges
Prescott was dissatisfied by the original breach of peace charge against Gilshteyn.
She planned to demand police further charge Gilshteyn, until Rep. Jason Doucette, D-13, told her a further charge was likely to be added.
Casanova promised he would ask the state’s attorney’s office to add a further charge, according to Doucette.
Driscoll confirmed the department had asked that charges be added but said he could not specify which. “On the day of the
arrest we went by the information we had,” he said.
Porter also felt breach of peace was an insufficient charge.
“To charge her with breach when we are in a pandemic. What she did is criminal,” she said. “She spat in her face, and (Prescott’s) asthmatic and she’s compromised.”
‘A soul ache’
“Connecticut has a serious issue with racism. This is just one incident,” said Prescott, noting racial disparities in housing, education and health care. “You have the same issues here that are happening across the country, but somehow we have been able to sweep it under the rug because it never makes national news.”
Many have criticized law enforcement’s response to the riot at the Capitol as tepid and delayed, and lawmakers launched an investigation into whether the Capitol breach was connected to a lack of preparedness on the part of law enforcement.
Activists saw a double standard compared to Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, which frequently were met by a large police presence. A Greenwich resident who went to Washington, D.C., in August remembered how well-fortified the Capitol had been during a Black Lives Matter event.