State v. Liebenguth

Citations

• 336 Conn. 685

Syllabus

The defendant was convicted of breach of the peace in the second degree in connection with an incident in which he confronted and directed certain comments and racial slurs at M, an African-American parking enforcement officer, who, immediately beforehand, had placed a parking ticket on the defendant's vehicle for being parked in a metered space without payment. Upon returning to his vehicle and finding the parking ticket, the defendant confronted M. After M and the defendant exchanged words, the situation escalated, and the defendant told M that the parking authority with which he was employed was ''fucking unbelievable'' and that he issued the parking ticket because the defendant's car was ''white.'' The defendant then told M that the actual reason he was given a parking ticket was because he was white. As the defendant started to walk away from M, the defendant stated, ''remember Ferguson,'' which apparently was a reference to a then recent and highly publicized shooting of an African-American man by a white police officer in Fergu- son, Missouri. Thereafter, both M and the defendant returned to and entered their vehicles, both of which had at least some of their windows down. M then thought he heard the defendant say the words ''fucking niggers,'' which caused him to believe that the defendant's earlier com- ment about Ferguson was a threat meant to imply that what had hap- pened in Ferguson was going to happen to him. As M was driving away, the defendant cut through the parking lot in his vehicle, approached M's vehicle, and then drove past M. As the defendant was driving past This case originally was scheduled to be argued before a panel of this court consisting of Chief Justice Robinson and Justices Palmer, McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn and Ecker. Although Justice McDonald was not present when the case was argued before the court, he has read the briefs and appendices, and listened to a recording of oral argument prior to partici- pating in this decision.