The mayor who responded to a federal investigation into his town’s alleged abuse of Latino residents by saying he might eat tacos for dinner is back for seconds.
After a reporter with the New Haven Register observed during a long interview with East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. that the sole minority member of an eight-member committee seeking to improve the police department was Puerto Rican (while most members of the town’s growing Latino community are Ecuadorian), Maturo asked why anyone would have to choose “a certain type of Latino.”
“If there’s a certain type of Latino that I should have picked, well then let somebody write it down on paper,” Maturo said, according to the newspaper. “‘I want a 5-foot-2, I want a certain sex.’ You tell me what you guys want. You want me to order it?”
“I picked a Latino. Did it have to come from a certain section of the country? You know what? I think that’s a foolish statement to make,” Maturo said.
“I wouldn’t make a statement like that,” Maturo said. “I brought in a Latino. Is he not dark enough for you? Light enough for you? I don’t know. … I wouldn’t have said that.”
Read and watch clips from the full interview here.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
Facebook Conversations
Questions about commenting with non-Facebook accounts like Yahoo, or other concerns? Click here to read the TPM Commenting FAQ.