Activists Send Hundreds of Tacos To Connecticut Mayor in Protest

The mayors office is receiving some heat from angry protesters over Connecticut Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr's Taco comment earlier this week.

The office of East Haven's mayor was blasted with prank phone calls and a delivery of hundreds of tacos Thursday after his now-famous quip that he would address accusations of anti-Latino bias by eating tacos, a remark that left emotions raw in the town's large Hispanic community.

Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. has apologized several times but resisted calls for his resignation over remarks he made to a television reporter following Tuesday's arrests of four town police officers, men described by one FBI official as "bullies with badges."

Maturo held regular meetings Thursday as Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission called on him to resign.

"The Latino community is upset and deeply wounded in what should have been a day of redemption for them," the commission's acting executive director, Werner Oyandel, said in a written statement, calling the comment "unprofessional and given in poor taste."

An immigration rights group, Reform Immigration for America, delivered 400 tacos to his Town Hall office in protest, though Maturo had left shortly beforehand for a meeting. A soup kitchen picked up the tacos, but one was left symbolically for the mayor.

In a statement released by his office, Maturo said the abundance of tacos highlights the need for healing in the town.

"The events of the past few days have focused our Town, and my administration, on the need to deal sensitively and compassionately with the challenges currently facing our Town," he said.

His office fielded a steady flow of calls, some with prank comments about tacos and others from supporters who want him to stay in his job.

Maturo has been mayor off and on since 1997 in this predominantly white, blue-collar town on the shore of Long Island Sound where Latino residents comprise about 10 percent of its population of 29,000. East Haven has been under federal scrutiny since the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights probe in 2009 that found discrimination and biased policing against Latinos.

A federal indictment accuses the four police officers of assaulting people while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searching Latino businesses, and harassing and intimidating people, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse.

The taco flap came after a reporter for New York's WPIX-TV asked Maturo on Tuesday, "What are you doing for the Latino community today?"

Maturo's response: "I might have tacos when I go home; I'm not quite sure yet."

Maturo, who is of Italian heritage, then said he might have spaghetti or any other kind of ethnic food, growing increasingly angry as he told Diaz to "go for it, take your best shot" to make the "taco" comment seem to imply something he did not intend.

He has called himself a "jerk" for the comment, which he called an off-the-cuff quip made at the end of a long, stressful day of interviews.

Based on reporting by The Associated Press.

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