Police probe alleged threat to state senator
Suspect Facebook post focused on police accountability law
State Capitol Police are investigating a social media post that might have a been threat of physical harm to veteran state Sen. Gary Winfield over last year’s controversial police accountability law.
The possible threat was made in response to a Facebook post last week by Republican state Sen. Rob Sampson of Wolcott, who on Monday disavowed any intent to inflame followers.
The allegedly threatening post came over the weekend, after Sampson commented on Facebook that the legislative Judiciary Committee, led by Winfield and state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport “have zero interest” in looking back at the police accountability law and other recent criminal justice reforms. That law, adopted in a special legislative session bans choke holds; requires officers to report others that are violating procedures; and bans the hiring of those dismissed from other police departments.
“Added together, these misguided laws have undermined the rule of law in our state and emboldened criminals, particularly juvenile car thieves,” Sampson wrote on the original Facebook post. “I will be counting on my community to help me create public pressure to force the majority party to have this conversation whether they want to or not. Stay tuned.”
The post generated 87 responses as of midday Tuesday. One responding comment said, “Or we can take justice in our own hands. Hopefully the sanitation system will pick up the carcass.”
Sampson included a link in the original post to a story about the judiciary committee’s upcoming agenda by The CT News Junkie, which first reported news of the alleged threat.
Sampson said he was neither responsible for, nor condones the post. It was unclear Tuesday why the post was taken as a threat to Winfield, a co-sponsor of the police accountability bill, and not other lawmakers. Capitol police declined to comment except to confirm they are investigating.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff on Tuesday condemned the alleged threat and stressed that Sampson’s criticism of the police-accountability bill was “incendiary, alarmist” and “reckless fear mongering.”
“We've always known that violent words lead to violent action,” Looney, D-New Haven and Duff, D-Norwalk, said in a written statement Tuesday morning. “When violent words of the public are met with silence from our leaders we are implicitly saying that these words and the actions for which they advocate are within accepted norms.”
The Senate leaders said that it was “no coincidence” that the posting on Sampson’s comment came during a tense week in which hundreds of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building and the FBI warned that armed supporters of Trump may appear at federal courthouses and state capital buildings throughout the nation in response to the president’s denial of the election outcome.
Winfield, in a Twitter post, said threats seem to be the routine price he has to pay. “I’ve had death threats, been stalked, run off the road and confronted,” Winfield tweeted on Monday. But he said, “none of that involved another legislator in any way,”
Winfield added, “I would expect that even if the comment were missed when brought to a colleague’s attention the action would be condemned.”
Sampson, in a subsequent Facebook comment, said he did not initially read the comment, and indicated that Democrats “and sympathetic progressive members of the media” are trying to use someone else’s post to attack him politically.
“First, I obviously condemn violence or threats of violence,” Sampson wrote. “It is worth noting that I am on the receiving end of the same kind of hostility on a regular basis. I do everything I can to remind my neighbors that the beauty of America is that we are free to disagree, and to do so with passion. However, there is no reason we cannot do so politely and with respect for our fellow man or woman. Second, there is no way we can track every comment that is made on our posts, particularly if they are shared in multiple places by multiple people.”
Stafstrom, the co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that he is shocked and disappointed that “thinly veiled” death threats can remain on colleagues’ social media pages without criticism.
“To a lot of extent, the advent of social media has really poisoned not just our politics, but how we interact with each other as a community,” Stafstrom said in an interview. “It is exceptionally unfortunate we do live in an age where elected officials rightly fear for themselves and their families as a result of policy decisions they make in support of a community they are advocating for, and their constituents.”
Stafstrom said that in the wake of the siege on the U.S. Capitol in Washington last week, he is researching Connecticut law on inciting riots, interfering with the General Assembly, and threatening legislative staff. “Some of those laws have been on the books since the mid-1970s,” he said. “The statutes need to be updated. We need to make it a felony for preventing or attempting to prevent the General Assembly from conducting their business. We need to make it a felony to engage in a riot.” Those charges currently carry misdemeanor penalties.
State Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, said in an afternoon statement on Tuesday said he was disappointed by Looney and Duff’s criticism.
"Now more than ever, our state and our nation need healing and unity, not more division,” Kelly wrote. "I would remind Senate Democrat leadership that as lawmakers, we all work in the marketplace of ideas. A policy such as Connecticut’s new police accountability law is worthy of review, criticism and debate.”
At the height of the summer debate over the police legislation, State Capitol Police provided security for Duff outside his Norwalk home, following an aggressive encounter the senator had at Norwalk Police headquarters that was followed-up by shouted taunts from motorists outside Duff’s home.