BLACK & WHITE Was former Newport officer’s arrest a racial matter? BY IAN DONNIS

A harrowing scene unfolded in the parking lot of the Newport Police Department shortly after midnight on August 19. A white officer in civilian clothes realized that an unfamiliar black man with whom he was wrestling had a gun on his person. The black man, a longtime former Newport police officer and Vietnam vet, meanwhile, feared he was going to wind up like Cornel Young Jr., the black Providence police officer accidentally killed in 2000 by white colleagues.

When it was all over, the black former officer, Thomas H. Zeigler, had been zapped three times with a Taser electric-shock gun and placed under arrest.

What remains in dispute is whether the white man, Joseph Carroll, who was coming on his shift at the time, identified himself as a police officer. Carroll says that he did; Zeigler, now of Raleigh, North Carolina, says that Carroll didn’t. And the resulting dispute has the makings of a mess that could get longer and more ugly before it is over.

Zeigler, 62, who retired from Newport in 1997, was due in Newport District Court on Wednesday, as the Phoenix went to press, for a pre-trial hearing on charges of felony assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct, according to his lawyer, Walter Stone. Supporters of Zeigler from the Rhode Island Minority Police Officers Association (RIMPA) and the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers were expected to attend.

Zeigler and Carroll offer conflicting accounts of what happened, although each accuses the other of being confrontational.

In a statement provided to Stone, Zeigler cites how he was borrowing the personal vehicle of Lieutenant Fred Gonsalves, adding, "You would actually have to be legally blind not to see that I had a key for the vehicle." Carroll’s police report, as read by Lieutenant Michael Brennan, says the officer "asked [Zeigler] what he was doing and he said it was none of his business . . . [Zeigler] walked up and bumped into the officer with his chest. At that point, they began to wrestle."

After Carroll realized that Zeigler had a gun, a uniformed officer arriving on the scene, Jason Kleinknecht, shocked Zeigler with a Taser, police say, until he stopped struggling. Zeigler, however, says he was repeatedly shocked after placing his hands in the air. Zeigler was released from handcuffs when a sergeant subsequently recognized him, and he was treated and released from Newport Hospital.

An internal affairs complaint filed by Zeigler will be investigated by someone other than Gonsalves, the department’s head of that unit, because of his connection to the incident, Brennan says. "At this time, there’s no indication that this arrest was racially motivated," he says.

RIMPA president Charles Wilson is less certain. "I will say to you there is normally a presumed inference that anybody black being someplace you didn’t think they should be is a suspect," he says. "Unfortunately, that’s the way of the world. Whether that was in fact the case in this situation, I can’t give you an answer."