Leaders in the city's Hispanic community are concerned that anti-immigrant feelings could be motivating a series of strong-arm robberies in the city's downtown neighborhoods.
Five times in the past five days, Hispanic men walking alone after dark have been set upon by small groups of assailants, beaten and robbed. Several of the victims required hospital emergency room treatment.
The most recent incident occurred Tuesday evening, when a 23-year-old Morris Street man was jumped by two attackers on Grandview Avenue.
One man hit the victim in the head with a bottle. The other rifled through his pockets, taking a wallet, about $30 cash and a watch, police said.
But both Maria-Cinta Lowe, executive director of the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury, and Wilson Hernandez, a founding member of the Danbury Area Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants, expressed fears that anti-immigration sentiment may be behind the crimes.
In recent months, the city's immigrant groups have felt themselves under scrutiny, they said, highlighted by Mayor Mark Boughton's unsuccessful request to have state police help track down illegal immigrants and a rally sponsored by an anti-illegal immigration group.
"I really would not like to think that this has something to do with race or nationality. That would be really bad for the city," Hernandez said.
"Five in a week?" Lowe said incredulously. "We never had anything like that before."
Five assults in a week is alot for a place like Danbury and when all five victims are Latinos, that should raise eyebrows.
Mayor Boughton's ill-advised rhetoric against the immigrants helped in the creation of hate groups like the Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control (CTCIC) who do nothing but terrorize the immigrant population. I put the blame of this increase in crime on them because they indirectly contributed to this situation and if it wasn't for people like Boughton and the CTCIC, their never would of been the increase in crimes against the immigrants in the first place (crimes against Latinos have never beeen this high as immigrants from Brazil and Equador lived in the area for the last ten years).
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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
