By Carlos Miller
The Catholic priest approached the cops with his arm extended, holding a silver object in his hand, refusing to divulge what it was when the officers asked him.
Thinking the priest was holding a weapon, one of the cops walked up to Father James Manship and again demanded to see the shiny object he was cupping inside his hands. But the priest held the object up high and “bladed his body in a aggressive manner,” according to the police report.
At this point, the officer feared for his life, so he grabbed the priest’s arm to see what he was holding but the priest started resisting and screaming. He even started walking away and finally the officer managed to put handcuffs on the priest.
It was only then that he discovered the priest had been holding a video camera all along.
And if you believe that, you haven’t seen the video, which completely contradicts the arrest report.
On Thursday, Connecticut prosecutors dropped all charges against Manship, which included interfering with an investigation and the old reliable, disorderly conduct.
Manship and fellow activists then went on the offense and filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division seeking an investigation of East Haven police for alleged brutality and racial profiling of Hispanics, according to the Associated Press.
Guess whose side God is on?
Popularity: 1% [?]
37 responses so far ↓
1 Scott Chamness // Mar 28, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Nice job priest. Those cops were so STUPID. Its almost like they didn’t know what a video camera does.
BTW, Carlos, nice title.
2 Chuck // Mar 28, 2009 at 11:28 AM
Thank goodness the priest is free. Now he can go back to helping more illegal aliens break the law and take jobs away from hardworking American taxpayers.
3 Scott Chamness // Mar 28, 2009 at 11:52 AM
Forgive me Chuck, but are you saying he should be in jail because he’s a priest or because he’s Hispanic? Either way, that was just wrong.
4 Chuck // Mar 29, 2009 at 3:05 PM
Scott I didn’t say either one of those things. Drop trying to put words in my mouth.
The priest helps illegal aliens break the law , illegal aliens who take jobs away from hard working Americans. I have no clue whether the priest is Hispanic or not. That’s irrelevant. He’s helping illegal aliens break the law. I have no sympathy for him. So he was arrested. Boo hoo. He’s helping criminals and hurting Americans to boot.
If it weren’t for the political correctnicks, the police would be able to arrest illegal aliens & turn them over to the feds for deportation. Anybody who helps illegal aliens avoid the law would be arrested too.
5 Carlos Miller // Mar 29, 2009 at 3:11 PM
Chuck,
If you really believe illegal immigrants are the ones to blame for people losing their jobs, then you are naive.
The real blame lies on Wall Street.
6 Chuck // Mar 29, 2009 at 3:15 PM
You got it. A whole lot of people on Wall Street are working in meat packing plants, car washes and cutting lawns.
Illegal aliens work for less than minimum wage & pay no income taxes. They take but do not give. They are a cancer on society.
7 Carlos Miller // Mar 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM
Chuck,
It’s a myth that they don’t pay income taxes. Employers take taxes out of their wages to cover their own asses.
What they don’t do is file for tax returns, leaving the money that is owed to them in the hands of the government.
They also pay sales taxes, automobile taxes and ad valorem taxes like the rest of us.
8 Scott Chamness // Mar 29, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Chuck, I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth. But I’m not really sure why you think the priest helps illegal immigrants. So, I figured it was either because he was a priest, or is hispanic, as can be assumed from the post.
About the tax thing, most of them pay the tax, because without it, they know they will never be allowed to become U.S. citizens. That’s one of the main things the naturalization dept. looks at.
9 missingxtension // Mar 29, 2009 at 10:23 PM
If you want him to be arrested for aiding and abetting. then they need to file the proper charges and collect evidence. The priest is not required by any law to run any persons social security number before helping. It also means that you need to give some kind of evidence to prove what he is doing. The facts are simple and always have been. I am about to provide sources and suggest you do the same.
MYTH: UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS DON’T PAY TAXES
FACT: Undocumented immigrants pay taxes in the form of income, property, sales, and frequently, payroll taxes at the federal and state level.
• As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes.
• Undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes as well, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration’s suspense file (taxes that cannot be matched to workers names and social security numbers), which grew by $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.
• In Arizona, sales taxes supply nearly half of our state revenues. All immigrants pay sales taxes.
• Schools are funded by property taxes, which are paid by anyone that owns a home or rents a home or apartment. (Landlords cover their taxes with tenant’s rent payments.)
(Source: http://www.immigrationforum.org/about/articles/tax_study.htm)
MYTH: IMMIGRANTS TAKE JOBS AWAY FROM AMERICANS…
FACT: This, the largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth.
• In Arizona, unemployment is currently 3.7 percent; a figure that is considered full employment. In the back-braking fields of meat-packing and farm-work, owners say that even if they offer $50 per hour, they could not fill these jobs with American workers. We have depended on immigrant labor to fill these jobs for decades. As the crackdowns on immigrants spread, fields all over the west are lying fallow because the farmers know they will not be able to find workers to pick their crops. In places where raids on meat-packing plants have chased out immigrants employers find that citizen workers do not want the jobs, or they quit after a short period of time because the work is too grueling.
• Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.
(Source: Richard Vedder, Lowell Gallaway, and Stephen Moore, Immigration and Unemployment: New Evidence, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Arlington, VA (Mar. 1994), p. 13.)
http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org
10 missingxtension // Mar 29, 2009 at 10:25 PM
If anything the cops should face charges for filling false paperwork. There is plenty of evidence to file that. Sorry for the double post
11 Nerdbeard // Mar 30, 2009 at 1:04 PM
Chuck’s looking for boogeymen. I bet he manages to find them wherever he looks. Just let him be.
12 missingxtension // Mar 30, 2009 at 1:49 PM
I understand that you dont want to turn this site into an immigration debate, but it was really distasteful of you to not aprove my first post.
13 Carlos Miller // Mar 30, 2009 at 1:54 PM
What post you’re talking about?
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
If you post something with a bunch of links, it might have gone into my spam filter.
14 missingxtension // Mar 30, 2009 at 1:56 PM
ah my apologies
i was not aware you had a spam filter
15 Carlos Miller // Mar 30, 2009 at 1:59 PM
There, it’s been approved. It got caught by my spam filter because of the multi-links.
16 missingxtension // Mar 30, 2009 at 3:33 PM
thanks
17 Chuck // Mar 30, 2009 at 4:04 PM
“I am about to provide sources”
A far-left pro-illegal alien lobbying group is hardly a reliable “source” for facts. Immigration Reform is an extreme leftist organization that wants to give a blank check to illegal aliens.
Since you admit in another thread you were a prison trustee, I’m not surprised you’re in favor of giving a free pass to law breakers.
The reason states like California are teetering near bankruptcy is because the taxpayers are saddled with paying for illegal aliens who sponge off the public dime. Everything from health care to education to car insurance is obscenely expensive for hardworking wage earners in California because of the illegals.
That’s what illegal coddlers like James Manship (and apparently you) want. You want to bend over and give illegal freeloaders even more freebies.
You enjoy watching illegals sodomize America.
18 Chuck // Mar 30, 2009 at 4:06 PM
“I’m not really sure why you think the priest helps illegal immigrants.”
James Manship has a long history of whining about illegals and how they need more handouts than they already get.
That’s why I have no sympathy for him. He’s a far left anarchist who will only be happy when America is reduced to a third world rubble.
19 Duane Kerzic // Mar 30, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Chuck,
You are obviously disconnected from the immigrant community and your own roots. Unless you are an American Indian you’re family immigrated to the USA at some time.
Almost all of the Mexicans and South and Central Americans that come to this country are very hard workers. Very few come here to ‘free load’ on our social services. The ones that are ‘free loading’ are mostly those that had something bad happen to them after they arrived here. The giving care to those in this situation goes all the way back to Ellis Island. If an immigrant arrived that was sick and not fit to be admitted they were given care in the Ellis Island Hospital until they were well enough to travel home or to be admitted.
Without all the illegal aliens in California the states economy would completely collapse. Who do you think harvests all of Califofnia’s crops? Movie Stars? It’s mostly illegal alien migrant farm workers that get that job done. They are the only ones willing to work the long difficult hours to get that job completed.
The problem this country has is that we don’t have an easy way for these people to enter the country. It would make much more sense (and cost a whole lot less money) to come up with a system to admit these people legally. So we know who they are. So they can buy car insurance and get drivers licenses. We’d all be much safer.
I once heard an interesting story. A friend of mine that’s 74 years old was on a motorcycle trip in Mexico. His motorcycle broke down. His friend was towing him across the city to the dealer to get it fixed. The Mexican Police stopped them. Asked what they were doing. They told him. The cop said it’s a holiday the dealer is closed but don’t worry. He got on his radio. 15 min later the mechanic from the dealership shows up with his pickup truck. They put the motorcycle in the back and drive them to the dealer where they open special just to fix my friends motorcycle. They give him the bill, they don’t charge anything extra for working on the holiday.
If that was a couple of Mexican men with broken down motorcycles in this country a lot of cops would have shot first and asked questions later.
I have spent almost 6 months touring on a motorcycle in Mexico. The friendlyness and openness of the Mexican people never failed to amaze me. I hear all this stuff in the media and none of it is remotely close to what my experiences were. I was never ripped off, I was never asked for a bride. I was always treated fairly and respectfully.
20 Scott Chamness // Mar 30, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Chuck,
Really, I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with you. From what I can tell, this man is a priest. Priests help people. If there was an illegal immigrant who passed you and begged you for some food as he was starving, would you condemn him to death because he is not a legal member of the US?
I hadn’t heard anything of his helping illegal immigrants either, the only things I know about him are from these posts, and some googleing. Seems to me that he would help anybody who asked him for help. What is so wrong with that?
21 missingxtension // Mar 30, 2009 at 11:59 PM
I really don’t like to attack people, but in your case well you obviously don’t know how to read or comprehend or maybe you just choose to ignore the truth.
I wrote “I was a trustee, i saw a lot of stuff in the city jail.” then you responded “Since you admit in another thread you were a prison trustee” City jail is not Prison!
As far as the sources, if you weren’t to ignorant you would see that the information comes from the Unites States government. Most anti immigrant groups use projections to back them up, and is like saying that the dallas cowboys are going to win the super bowl this year. It just so happens that this so called “far-left pro-illegal alien lobbying group” put it in a nice word document for everyone to see.
Either way seeing you troll around this blog makes me wonder exactly why you even bother coming here since in the end you’re only going to ignore the truth with your blind belief. What you fail to see is that you are the minority in the debate, and most people choose to ignore you rather than bang their heads on the wall. You still didn’t provide any sources.
22 Chuck // Mar 31, 2009 at 12:04 AM
I was a parole officer for 38 years. Here’s a news flash for you: you have a prison record. You were in prison. Jail vs. prison is just semantics.
“if you weren’t to ignorant”
The word is spelled “too” and the correct phrase is “if you weren’t so ignorant.” On that I rest my case.
23 ALL BE DAMNED // Mar 31, 2009 at 12:21 AM
I realy hate to say it chuck i agree with them you dont read you assume and havent sited any sorces,. where she has to bad you cant read i have been to PRISON and city and county JAIL THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE
Have a wonderful day chuck HOPE YOU LEARN
Ken
24 ender // Apr 2, 2009 at 6:17 AM
Why are you guys acknowledging chuck? he’s a hick with little to no humanity. He believes in invisible borders, drawn by men far richer, and far more evil than he.
He’s probably just upset because he’s a high school drop out, probably working for minimum wage somewhere in which someone with an accent is his employer. Probably old too. You don’t see too many people under the age of 40 with such rage for their convenience store clerks, or their taxi cab drivers.
My family sympathizes with illegal immigrants. In their company, they pay them reasonably well. Chuck’s unfortunately wrong about the taxes thing. It’s okay though, he’ just a lonely troll, so really – just ignore it. don’t feet it. Let it die under the bridge.
25 ender // Apr 2, 2009 at 6:21 AM
Chuck believes that a priests humanity should stop at any country-border. He doesn’t understand they’re humanitarians, not bitter jaded old men like he.
26 Nerdbeard // Apr 7, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Kinda chilling to think of one’s freedom depending on being liked by Chuck the parole officer, eh? I bet he actually wanted to be a cop.
27 jones // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Why is everybody defending this priest. All of you complain about the “blue line” and rip on cops for covering for bad cops. What about priests covering up for other priests, is that something you condone?
28 Carlos Miller // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Jones,
Way to change the topic, but no, of course that is not something any of us should condone.
But until this priest has been accused of any wrongdoing, then that is purely irrelevant to the discussion.
29 jones // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:44 PM
It is relevant to the discussion because he was armed with a camera video taping the cops confiscate illegal license plates because he thought the cops were harassing these people. I think he should be more worried about cleaning up his own profession then worrying about cops “harassing” criminals.
30 Carlos Miller // Apr 7, 2009 at 12:50 PM
So you’re not at all concerned that the cop blatantly lied on his police report?
It is a sworn statement, after all.
31 Duane Kerzic // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Jones,
When Priest cover up I complain.
When Cops cover up I complain.
This however is a story about a priest with a camera taking video of the police. It’s about how the police violated his first amendment rights. It’s about how after they did that they lied about it.
It’s not about priests covering up.
Please stick to the subjects at hand. Your posts are getting distracting.
32 jones // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:20 PM
I am concerned about the way the cop lied on his report. I just don’t give this priest any credit for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. These guys were selling license plates. It didn’t look like any secretary of state building I’ve ever been to so I’m assuming they were breaking the law.
This wasn’t harassment by the police or as you like to say Duane “a newsworthy event” so there was no reason to show up with a video camera. I think this priest has bigger fish to fry if he want’s to go on a video crusade.
33 Duane Kerzic // Apr 7, 2009 at 1:52 PM
jones,
Well at least you’re somewhat back on the subject.
They weren’t selling license plates. http://newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/03/new_haven_pries_1.php
At the time of his arrest, Manship was videotaping East Haven police in the process of removing license plates from a wall at the rear of My County Store. Wilfred Matute, the owner of the store, said that the plates were simply decorative. Matute said that he was told by police that his possession of the plates was illegal and that they would have to be removed.
You see license plates screwed to walls of places like this all the time. Because the owner happened to be Latino the officers decided to elevate this and harass the owner of the store.
They also harassed Manship. If the police are making an arrest it’s a newswothy event. They were making this guy take down the plates with an electric screw driver.
34 Voice of Reason // Apr 7, 2009 at 3:26 PM
Hello again, “jones”.
In regard to your latest posting, there’s some problems with your reasoning and conclusions.
First, the license plates in this case were decorations that were bolted to the wall. Unless new evidence has come to light, they weren’t for sale. Therefore, the statement that the store was “selling license plates” appears to be incorrect. The fact that it isn’t a “secretary of state building” isn’t relevant.
Some of the plates had price tags on them, but the price tags were apparently attached by the previous owners. The fact that the plates were bolted to the wall demonstrates that the store in question wasn’t treating them as commodities.
The store will probably be forced to pay a fine for selling “illegal” plates, if it hasn’t already done so, but that’ll happen because the city is embarrassed by the whole thing and needs to sweep it at least partway under the rug. Opinion, not proven fact.
There’s a related point that might increase the city’s embarrassment level. If I remember correctly, there’s a non-Latino restaurant in the area which displays similar license plates in a similar way. The police have never raided the restaurant or even suggested that there’s anything wrong with the restaurant’s plates.
Second, the police parked outside the store in question on a regular basis and intercepted shoppers who had Latino facial features. Whites didn’t receive the same treatment. Fact, not opinion. That’s the literal definition of discrimination. Therefore, the statement that “this wasn’t harassment by the police” is also incorrect. However, there’s one point that isn’t clear. Police actions outside the store were certainly harassment. Police actions inside the store were probably harassment, but to establish this as fact, as opposed to opinion, we’d need to show that some of the same officers were involved or that the two groups had similar agendas.
Third, Father Manship wasn’t “sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong”. I’ve read about this kind of thing for many years, and if it isn’t possible to “dirty up” a victim, people will usually say that they were “asking for it”, or that they were “looking for trouble”, or the weakest argument of all, they were “sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong”.
What does that even mean? It sounds exactly like the kind of thing that the Ku Klux Klan said about civil rights investigators in the 1960s. No, I’m not suggesting that you have anything in common with those people but the language. However, it is
the same language.
The officers in this case committed at least one criminal offense (falsifying a police report), and possibly a second one (harassment based on ethnicity, which I believe could be prosecuted at both state and federal levels if you’re able to position it as an attempt to deprive the victim of civil rights). Father Manship, on the other hand, committed no crimes at all.
This isn’t a matter of opinion, except for the second of the two crimes committed by the officers (harassment). The falsification of a police report and Manship’s innocence are simple facts. If you disagree with any of these points, it should be possible to prove or disprove them. That’s important. Debate things that can be proven or disproven. It’s not useful to state points as nebulous as somebody’s “nose” is somewhere “where it doesn’t belong”. It’s also a bad idea to use language that might allow your opponents to characterize you as unintelligent or as a Ku Klux Klan member.
Finally, some people who’ve commented on this case in this forum and in other forums have said that the store owners were “illegals” or “wetbacks” and that Father Manship was somehow committing a mysteriously unspecified crime because he was “helping wetbacks”. In some cases, those people are simply trolls. In other cases, they’re irrational and possibly dangerous. I’ll note that your posting includes nothing of this type. You appear to be rational. You’ve made some incorrect statements, but if you minimize pointless handwaving (the “nose” thing) and emphasize points that can be proven or disproven, you might accomplish something.
That is your goal, since you don’t appear to be a troll or one of the irrational people.
By the way, I’ve answered most or all of the questions that you asked me on the Pataky thread. Additionally, another poster was kind enough to locate the District Attorney’s report on the one case that I couldn’t identify. I’ve posted more details about that case.
35 Kelly // Aug 23, 2009 at 2:21 PM
ROFLOL! HA!HA! That STUPID, effing “criminal with a badge” couldn’t stand it that someone was recording THE TRUTH! People, we need to have an uprising in this country. I’m so sick or reading that slogan on the doors of their cruisers that reads, “TO PROTECT AND SERVE”
Protect and Serve “my a$$!” The only thing the “criminals with badges” want to protect and serve is THEMSELVES!
36 Ron // Sep 4, 2009 at 1:08 AM
I think most people missed the true message behind what happened. A human was assaulted, and wrongly imprisoned for watching out for the natural rights of other humans. When we everyone evolve to this thinking. We are all of the same race….the Human race. Religion, ethnicity, color, or whatever other excuse people can think of mean nothing. We are ALL just humans. Please evolve, unite the species,…save the species. Peace all.
37 Rich // Feb 25, 2010 at 9:46 PM
Chuck, I am a hardworking construction worker of Irish ancestry. What do I an American, have in common with a illegal immigrant? Well to the elite who have taken this country away from the people, and pick and choose what rights we are allowed to have, at there discretion. We are both powerless peasants. I have more in common with my Brother workers from Mexico then any politician. You want to help working people then help those without a voice.
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