Ex-Police Officer Who ‘Found’ Racist Letter at Work Threatening Him and Other African-American Cops Is Charged with Planting It
Imogen Calderwood, Daily Mail, December 3, 2015
An ex-police officer who reported finding a letter insulting black officers has been accused of planting the note himself.
Clive Higgins was arrested on Wednesday in Connecticut on a charge of second-degree falsely reporting an incident.
The 50-year-old claimed to have discovered the threatening letter on February 9 inside his mailbox at the Bridgeport police department.
Higgins, who is black, said the note written on police department stationary made him fear for his life and proved that there was discrimination inside the department.
The letter began and ended with ‘White Power’, according to the CT Post.
The term was coined by the Klu Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party in the late 1960s and 70s.
The letter added that Higgins didn’t belong in the Police Department, and went on to make disparaging comments about African-American police officers.
‘It’s disappointing,’ said Sgt. Charles Paris, head of the police union.
‘But hopefully this will clarify some questions about our membership. We have hard-working men and women in the department and our sole purpose is to protect the residents of the city of Bridgeport.’
A state police investigator wrote in an affidavit that Higgins admitted during an interview he had typed the letter himself.
He was acquitted in January in the beating of a Hispanic suspect in which two other officers pleaded guilty.
He resigned in July, after 13 years in the police force.
Higgins will appear at the state Superior Court on December 16.
