A black candidate running for Connecticut’s House of Representatives says she was racially profiled by a state trooper while out campaigning — and told she needed a permit to talk to constituents, according to a report Thursday.
Ernestine Holloway was stopped by the trooper while out knocking on doors with a dozen campaign volunteers last week in Middlefield. He told her that she needed a peddler’s permit.
“The trooper said they had a complaint that someone was trying to break into their house,” Holloway told the Hartford Courant. “I showed him who I was and explained we were campaigning when he asked if I had a peddler’s permit.”
Holloway, a Republican candidate for District 82, sent her workers home and marched to town hall, where officials told her she didn’t need a peddler’s permit. She got one anyway.
“I didn’t mind him asking me questions about an attempted burglary but why are you asking me if I have a peddler’s license?” said Holloway, whose van, outfitted with a big red, white and blue magnet stating “Ernestine Holloway for State Representative,” was parked nearby. “I’m not selling anything.”
The very next day, Holloway was confronted again by a different trooper while campaigning in a different part of Middlefield. She had passed the trooper in the same van and parked the vehicle on the side of the road to start knocking on doors.
That’s when the trooper pulled up and asked if the van had broken down. She replied that it was fine — and that she’d just passed him in it. He took off.
“I was profiled, accused of breaking into someone’s house and stopped twice in two days for no reason,” Holloway said.
State police are probing the incident, sources told the Courant.
Police said a trooper from Troop F in Westbrook responded to a call of a suspicious person but denied any officers told the wannabe pol that she needed a permit, they told the Meriden Record-Journal.
Holloway said she hasn’t returned to Middlefield since.
“The people in the town are very nice and opened their doors and I am not afraid of them,” she said. “But I am afraid of the state police.”
State Republican Party Chairman JR Romano said what happened was “absolutely terrible.”
“She was doing what every other candidate should have been doing — going door to door to meet voters,” he said.
