PLAINVILLE, Conn. _ Workers this week installed a fence to separate the home of an African American family from that of next-door neighbor Anthony Esposito, described by a prosecutor as a "self-avowed racist" who carried on a summerlong campaign of racial harassment and intimidation against his neighbors.
Christopher Chapman, a Waterbury native who has lived in Plainville for 17 years, said he has never experienced the kind of racism his family has endured since June, when police say an intoxicated Esposito went on racist tirade after his dog ran onto Chapman's property. Fearing it might attack his daughter, Chapman threw a glass of water at the dog.
Esposito, 49, implied he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and said Klan members would be coming to his house for the Fourth of July. He also told Chapman that he did not like black people and could not hear black people.
On Monday, after a prosecutor argued that Esposito was using the flag to intimidate and harass the Chapmans' daughter, Superior Court Judge Maureen Keegan ordered Esposito not to fly the flag and to have no contact with the Chapman family.
"I've been here 17 years and never had to do it until now," Chris Chapman said of the fence, which cost him and his wife Angela $4,000.
Esposito moved into the home on Woodford Avenue Extension next door about two years ago and Chris Chapman said there were no issues until June.
After the drunken tirade, Esposito would continue to swear loudly, especially when his daughter was outside, and began displaying a Confederate flag. It was obvious, Chris Chapman said, that Esposito was using the flag to try to intimidate his family and "unnerve and intimidate" his 12-year-old daughter, Chapman said.
"It worked because she's terrified," Chapman said. "It was very calculated."
Angela Chapman said Esposito engaged in "constant intimidation" and used the Confederate "flag as a tool to harass us, intimidate us."
Plainville police charged Esposito with breach of peace after the June incident, and with disorderly conduct for an the Oct. 4 incident in which he draped himself in a Confederate flag and ran up and down the driveway as the Chapman's daughter waited for her school bus.
"I am scared (of Anthony Esposito) because I am black," the girl told Plainville police.
After Esposito's initial arrest in June, Plainville police worked to mediate the problems between Esposito and his neighbors. Lt. Eric Peterson made about half a dozen trips to the neighborhood to talk with the Chapmans and Esposito, and in some cases Esposito appeared to listen.
"I went up there to try to intervene, mediate, talk some sense into this guy," Peterson said. At one point Esposito wanted to put a flag pole in his front yard on which to hoist a Confederate flag. Peterson urged him not to, and Esposito didn't do it.
Esposito claimed he was a Southerner and showed Peterson a Confederate flag tattoo on his chest, Peterson said. And Peterson asked if the flag was so important to Esposito, why had he never wanted to fly it until after his confrontation with the Chapmans. Peterson said Esposito had no answer.
"I tried to explain to Mr. Esposito before this came to a head (that) it's not like he was just putting this flag out," Peterson said. "It was coming on the heels of him making some pretty disturbing comments."
The flag can have different meanings to different people, Peterson said. He recalled the old television show "The Dukes of Hazzard," where the Confederate flag was emblazoned atop the main characters' car.
"But in this case, it looks like he was trying to intimidate them," Peterson said, adding he told Esposito he needed to consider the Confederate flag's impact on his neighbors. "He didn't take my advice," Peterson said.
Esposito did not respond to knocks on his front door Monday or Tuesday.
During Esposito's court appearance Monday in New Britain, State's Attorney Brian Preleski asked Keegan to order Esposito to have no contact with the Chapmans, to remain inside his home when their daughter boards and gets off the school bus, and that he not display a Confederate flag within 250 yards of the Chapman home. Keegan issued the order.
Retired Superior Court Judge Robert Holzberg said Keegan faced a difficult decision in balancing Esposito's First Amendment rights and the rights of the victims, especially a 12-year-old child, to be safe in her environment.
"What has been clear for at least a century is that First Amendment rights are not absolute," Holzberg said. "Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote it best when he said a person cannot yell 'Fire' in a theater."
Preleski argued that the flag, a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan, was being used as an instrument to intimidate and harass.
"Mr. Preleski argued and the judge agreed the use of the flag was not for communicating any political views, but for the purpose of intimidating and harassing the neighbors," Holzberg said.
