Barrington man arrested after racially charged argument with neighbor

BARRINGTON — The case of a 71-year-old Barrington man, who is accused of unleashing racial slurs as he assaulted a neighbor in an affluent Rumstick Point neighborhood, fueled a wave of activism Sunday afternoon on the front lawn of Town Hall.

Posts on social media and local news coverage initially drew attention to Friday’s arrest of Richard Gordon, and by midday Sunday, many people wanted to do something to show support for the man’s neighbors.

About 100 people gathered on the lawn, some of them carrying picket signs, all of them listening when Katherine Quinn represented herself as a friend of the family and called for Rhode Islanders to do more to confront racism in the state.

The case itself presented a change in scenery from other high-profile dramas that have galvanized protests aligned with the Black Lives Matter cause.

Gordon, of Rumstick Drive, lives in a pretty home that offers views of Narragansett Bay, its waters glistening just beyond a lawn on the other side of the narrow drive that serves as a street. Conimicut Light is visible in the distance.

On Monday, authorities say, the police went to the property in response to a 911 call.

In the subsequent days, they analyzed videos and other information gathered at the scene. And on Friday, they charged Gordon with simple assault and disorderly conduct, saying that authorities could still amend the charges based on a review by the attorney general’s office.

On Sunday, in an interview with The Providence Journal, Barrington Police Chief Dino DeCrescenzo, acknowledged the racial aspects of what took place.

He also confirmed that two particular videos, both posted on a Facebook page kept by the wife of the reported assault victim, were among three videos reviewed by investigators.

One of the videos, shot at close quarters in the midst of the altercation, is too blurry and too chaotic to offer much of a window on what took place, but it does provide a clear soundtrack.

“You are rude,” a man says with an accent.

Another man, who has no accent, shouts an obscenity and attaches a racial slur. As he shouts, the sound of a loud slap punctuates his stream of vulgarities and epithets.

In the second video, the same man appears in the frame. DeCrescenzo confirmed that it is Gordon.

In that clip, Gordon acknowledges his own use of the racial slur.

Gordon’s neighbors, who were not present at the Town Hall gathering, were somewhat shy in responding to the situation.

On Sunday, Quinn said the family asks the public for their privacy.

However, the woman’s activity on a Facebook page bearing her name, Iman Ali Pahlavi, had already surrendered anonymity.

In a post on Friday, she said the altercation had erupted when her husband went to replace a property marker that had gone missing after a surveyor put it there about a week ago.

Iman’s husband is Bahram Pahlavi. He is not African American. His ethnicity is Middle Eastern.

The family moved to the neighborhood about three years ago and has been subject to various “microaggressions” over that period, according to her post.

Gordon, who lives in a house that was valued at nearly $1 million for the 2016 tax roll, according to an online property record, did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.

“He’s an angry racist privileged white man who cannot stand the fact that this family lives across the street from him,” Quinn said.

“So ideally,” she said, “ideally ... we stop hiding the fact that this town has a serious problem.”

Quinn engaged Barrington’s town manager, James Cunha, in a discussion about the incident and Gordon’s motivations.

She and others in the crowd criticized Cunha’s earlier description of the incident as having “racial overtones,” saying that it was motivated by hate.

“What that man did was reprehensible and abhorrent and shouldn’t be part of our community,” Cunha said.

The crowd cheered when Cunha told them that Gordon’s guns have been removed from the house.

A woman who grew up in Senegal described a type of agony that she said she has endured regularly since moving to town 17 years ago. She said she feels she often needs to prove her value to people before they treat her like a human being.

“The emotional pain is unbearable,” she said.

Margaret Lee said some people shout racial insults at her from car windows as she walks her pugs along Governor Bradford Drive and Nayatt Road.

Most of the people in the crowd were not minorities. Some of the picket signs stated “Root out racism” and “Stop White Violence.”

The sign carried by 39-year-old Alex Horvet stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“The time for slackitivism is over,” Horvet said. “This town needs a wake-up call. If I’m not part of the solution, I’m definitely part of the problem.”