Nursing moms hold protest outside Riverhead police headquarters

“Boring.”

That was six-year-old Daniel Simon’s answer when asked what he thinks of breastfeeding. The Huntington boy’s one-word answer drew laughs from the small group of people waiting outside Riverhead police headquarters for a “nurse-in” to begin this afternoon.

From the mouths of babes.

“That’s how it should be for everyone, everywhere,” said Janet Titmus Delettera, a certified lactation consultant, as she watched Daniel run off with another child.

“Unfortunately, everyone feels free to say something. A woman can’t nurse without something happening,” Delettera said.

Shannon Distefano of Southampton agreed. “I start nursing and everyone turns around and walks away,” she said.

Delettera had small pamphlets to distribute that summarize the N.Y. public health law provisions known as the “Breastfeeding Mother’s Bill of Rights.”

A dozen adults turned out for a “nurse-in” outside the police department today to protest a Riverhead officer telling a nursing mother to cover up when he responded to her report of a domestic dispute in Wading River April 14.

Andrea Zeledon-Mussio, of Westhampton, was sitting in her car nursing her infant daughter Sophia, when Riverhead Police Officer Patrick Loszewski responded to the scene outside the home of her older daughter’s father. See prior story. Zeledon-Mussio says the officer ordered her — three times — to “cover that up,” despite N.Y. law protecting a woman’s right to breastfeed in public. Zeledon-Mussio was angered by Police Chief David Hegermiller’s response to the incident. He didn’t offer an apology and instead said the officer “did the right thing.”

The chief’s reaction prompted her to organize today’s nurse-in, she said. (See prior story.)

Flanked by supporters holding hand-written posters bearing pro-breastfeeding messages, Zeledon-Mussio and four other women sat in front of Riverhead police headquarters and nursed their babies.

“We’re here to support Andrea and Sophia and the right of women to breastfeed their babies everywhere, and the right to do so publicly, ” said Jeanne Rosser, of Amityville, La Leche League leader and a certified lactation consultant. 

No police officers attended the protest.

There haven’t been too many nurse-in demonstrations on Long Island, Rosser said. “Usually once people are educated, they apologize and there’s no need for a protest.”

Zeledon-Mussio said today she intends to file a complaint about Hegermiller with Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter, who serves as police commissioner, because the chief’s reaction to the incident is “very disturbing,” she said.