While walking to a party on Washington Street in the wee hours of last Friday morning, Al Fertig ’10 threw a Sour Patch Kid candy into the street. It was a decision he soon came to regret as he noticed a Middletown Police car quickly approaching.

“I threw the Sour Patch Kid into the street because I don’t like orange ones and suddenly a cop pulls up who does a U-turn and shines his light on me,” Fertig recalled. “There was a dog barking in the back of his car and he immediately starts yelling at me and calling me an ’asshole.’”

The officer, Douglas Clark, who has faced previous complaints of harassment, then began to fill out a ticket, Fertig said.

“He said, ’Get in front of the car you asshole,’ and as he’s standing there writing up a ticket, two more cop cars pull up and shine their lights on me,” Fertig said. “After fifteen minutes he gave me a $219 ticket and drove off.”

The stated infraction written on the ticket, which Fertig provided to The Argus, was littering.

When he asked for the officer’s information, Fertig said, Clark accused him of being drunk.

Clark did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Josh Gordon ’10, who witnessed the incident, thinks the entire situation is unfair.

“Al was very polite and from my perspective he was being harassed,” Gordon said. “The punishment did not equal the crime. There was no crime.”

Gordon is not the only one to accuse Clark of harassment. Clark was reportedly involved in an incident on Sunday, April 8, 2007 in which several Middletown Police officers pepper-sprayed and arrested Jose Chapa ’07 after responding to a noise complaint on Home Avenue.

On that night, students said that they heard officers screaming and swearing at those gathered outside.

A Middletown Police officer who identified himself as “Officer Clark,” said ,“We give you a hundred breaks a year, and you just piss all over us.”

The Middletown Police Department did not comment about that situation.

Several weeks later, on April 28, 2007, three members of Teens with Talent (TWT), a Middletown organization meant to empower young minority students, were confronted by Clark while they waited for rides outside the Buttonwood Tree after an open mic night. The incident was not too different from Fertig’s experience, said Cheryllyn McRae White, founder of TWT and a witness.

“We were leaving, and Officer Clark immediately pulled up on the curb and got up and yelled in one member’s face,” she said. “It seemed like he profiled him because of his size and the way he dressed. He also jumped out of the car with his dog in a very threatening manner.”

TWT filed a formal complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities alleging harassment and racial profiling. An agreement was reached, however, and Clark apologized for his actions, White said.

Though White thinks that there are respectable Middletown Police officers, she believes she is often unfairly pulled over because she is African American. Her daughter, she said, has been pulled over three times since she received her driver’s license last month.

“There’s not enough crime in Middletown for the number of cops there are if you have this much time to pull over citizens,” she said.

Although Fertig’s situation does not involve a racial bias, he agreed with White that the police should focus on more substantial crimes in the future.

“I think people are outraged about this in light of the recent muggings,” he said. “Shouldn’t they be spending time preventing actual crime rather than harassing Wesleyan students?”