New Haven Independent

Rather they joined more than a hundred residents of the 300-apartment complex to celebrate New Haven’s version of National Night Out (NNO), a festive opportunity to call attention to the relationships among families, activist citizens such as the hundreds of New Haven volunteer block watches, the police, and politicians that, cumulatively, make for safer communities.
This was the 23rd annual National Night Out, sponsored by the National Association of Town Watches. Similar events were scheduled in 10,000 communities across the country. While there were related events around New Haven, the Sunset Ridge party has been the main site of the NNO in New Haven for the past several years.
p(clear). While people waited for Mayor JohnDeStefano, Police Chief Francisco Ortiz, and other officials to arrive, there were burgers, hot dogs, pop corn, and cotton candy to eat, and much to do, including cavorting with clowns, a jolly jumper inflatable house for the little ones, and face painting for thirteen year-old Tisha Denny, who later initiated formal ceremonies by singing the national anthem.
p(clear). They could also pet Eli, New Haven’s first bomb dog, or as the 21-old Labrador is officially monickered, an “Explosive Ordinance Detection Canine.” Charles Hebron serves with Eli on the joint Yale-New Haven bomb squad. The dog is named Eli, he said, because — guess what/ — Yale paid for him. “In fact,” Hebron explained as the dog, as usual, upstaged him with the kids, “Eli came to us from the Guiding Eyes for the Blind organization. Eli failed in one aspect of his work with the blind. he just refused not to chase squirrels, so, when he washed out, he came to us; his qualities are what we need. he’s a great bomb dog.”
p(clear). Guiltily breaking away from Eli, a reporter asked Alderman Antunes (in the photo with officer Joe Avery, who supervises block watches for the NHPD and helped to organize NNO) how in his view the city was doing crime wise.
Antunes’ district includes Sunset Ridge. He was a 29-year veteran of NHPD before his recent aldermanic election, and Avery’s former captain. He had these thoughts about community policing: “Do you know that the 9th police district, the East Shore, stretches from the North Haven line through here, through four more aldermanic districts, all the way down to Lighthouse Point? And we have only two to three officers on each eight-hour shift policing all that territory? Criminals do their homework; they know where we’re thin.”
The problem, he pointed out, based on his many years of experience running the NHPD’s family services division, was that community policing basics require intensive manpower, and the department, with the best of intentions, is stretched beyond where it shouldn’t be.
“Nevertheless,” he said optimistically, “what it’s really about is people. That’s what this night is about. Parents and kids relating to each other. Kids get in trouble not because the city has not provided things to do — he cited the Mayor’s youth initiatives — but because parents don’t do enough things with their kids. “So,” he concluded, “kids, don’t let your parents get lost.”
p(clear). Evoking the tight-knit world in which she and Mayor DeStefano grew up, Congresswoman DeLauro struck a similar theme. “In the kind of community where I grew up, one of extended families, you never knew where your family ended. If something happened to one of us, something happened to all of us. That’s what makes community and will reduce crime and domestic violence, and that’s what we’re marking tonight.”
What with the recent death of 13year-old Jajauna Cole and the shooting of Justus Suggs, also 13, in the Hill, not everyone was as entirely upbeat and sanguine. One participant, who had just moved to Sunset Ridge and preferred to be identified only as Claudia, said, “I have five grandkids and I’m terrified for this generation. The city scares me.” Still, she was happy to be at Sunset Ridge, finding it more secure than her previous residence near the Quinnipiac Terrace area.
p(clear). Police Chief Ortiz, who arrived with the mayor, said in his view that we were doing OK four weeks after Jaujauna was killed. The police gun and trouble hot line has been utilized —- that number is 946-8244 — and many families have called not just about guns, he said, but with kids who were, in their parents’ view, unsupervisable. In many instances, Chief Ortiz said, detectives and counselors were dispatched, and interventions were successful.
Before making speeches, the mayor preferred to pause and to talk to a group of ten-year old kids. He asked them where they went to school and who their teachers were.One young man said he was going to remember this day for the rest of his life for having met the mayor.
Thus inspired, Mayor DeStefano spoke briefly and to the heart: “We’ve built the Betsy Ross School, and we’re redoing Quinnipiac Terrace, and we’ve built a lot of buildings. But community is not about buildings. It’s about people in them. Life and family are made strong by relationship. Chief Ortiz can tell you that policing is all about relationship as well. He can tell you that we’ve had two tragic incidents and we’ll get through it together. We’ve just come from the hospital, but I must tell you that coming here to celebrate community with you is equally important.”