Ativist's Daughter Arrested

Connecticut Post ^ | July 21, 2005 | Greg Shulas

[BillyBonebrake]

MILFORD — The daughter of a black civil rights activist was held in lieu of $45,000 bond Wednesday after she allegedly attacked two white police officers on a transit bus while denouncing them with racial slurs. The commotion began Tuesday night when Holly Tucker, daughter of Barbara Fair, an organizer for People Against Injustice, apparently failed to pay her bus fare and then threatened the driver when told to get off the bus.

Two officers called in to defuse the situation found an angry Tucker on the bus in the parking lot of the Westfield Shoppingtown Connecticut Post mall, police said. Rather than responding to repeated requests to leave, Tucker, 22, of West Haven, began attacking the officers, said Milford Police spokesman Officer Vaughan Dumas in a statement. Tucker's 2-year-old daughter was with her at the time.

"Police then attempted to arrest Tucker when she became combative, kicking an officer in the leg and scratching an officer's arm during the struggle to resist arrest," Dumas said.

Before getting off the bus, Tucker scolded the two officers and the bus driver, all of whom were white, with racial epithets. No one suffered serious injuries during the dispute.

Tucker faces three counts of intimidation based on bigotry and bias, three counts of second-degree threatening, two counts of assault on a police officer, two counts of interfering with police and a count of breach of peace.

At Tucker's arraignment in Superior Court, Judge Kenneth Shluger ordered her held in lieu of $45,000 bond. She was ordered to return to court on Aug. 8.

Tucker's mother, Barbara Fair, of the New Haven-based People Against Injustice, was in a meeting about reforming the criminal justice system when she learned of her daughter's arrest.

People Against Injustice has advocated for more civil rights for convicted felons, eliminating the tax on collect calls made from prisons and reducing overcrowding in the state's corrections system.

Outside the courtroom, Fair said she is confident her daughter will be exonerated.

"We have plenty of witnesses. We have people who will exonerate her," she said. Tucker's sister, Kim Tucker, 17, said that police were too eager to make an arrest. "They shoved her to the ground and put her feet against her back," said Kim Tucker, who watched the altercation.

In Connecticut, fewer racial crimes are committed against whites than minority groups, said Randi Pincus, assistant director of the regional office of the Anti-Defamation League.

"We do see this type of situation less frequently. It does happen and there is precedent for it," she said.

Greg Shulas, who covers Milford, can be reached at 878-2130.

[Onelifetogive]

Read your own cited passage.

Uhhh...nevermind!