New Haven Independent

Spencer was on hand for an event called to open a tech room at the branch library on Dixwell Avenue, and to celebrate the first three weeks of a new program teaching neighborhood teens to shoot and edit videos and computer slide shows.

The tech program (officially called “Gateway to National Prominence”) is the latest effort of city cop Shafiq Abdussabur’s CTRibat initiative, the most innovative and hopeful response of the past year to a spike in youth violence in New Haven. (Click here to read about Abdussabur’s campaign.)

With the financial help of City Hall, the cops, Yale and Empower New Haven, Abdussabur got the new tech program started three weeks ago. He runs it with Chip Croft, who operates SEA-TV, producer of marine DVDs. Along with Southern Connecticut State University interns, they bring 14 kids aged 11-17 into the Stetson library to learn how to work cameras and computer editing equipment. (There’s already a waiting list for the next session.)

They take the teens on field trips at which they film footage that they later edit at the library. The last two Saturdays saw the group travel to the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk and to the Yale Art Gallery. At Monday’s press event, students displayed the videos they put together of the aquarium visit, complete with music soundtracks.

“These kids are picking up the hardware part faster than my college students,” said Croft, who teaches university classes in video production. “We have already identified” some “amazing talent.”

“Amazing” is how AJ Hicks’ video tricks looked to mom Tracey Jones. AJ, who’s 13 and lives on Townsend Street, screened his video “My day at the museum” for Jones at Stetson Monday.

Then he turned the computer’s camera on mom. He played around with the screen image, turning mom into a cyclops, then contorting her image into a myriad of funhouse-mirror images. Mom was alternately delighted and mystified, which in turn delighted AJ (as can be seen in the photo at the top of this story).

The path to the program for AJ and his brother Micah is a textbook tale of community policing in action. Jones said she met Officer Abdussabur during his rounds as a Dixwell beat cop. She heard him talking about this program he was starting at the library. She asked to sign up her sons.

Mytisha Spencer, an 11-year-old from Ashmun Street (also shown at the top of this story) ended up in the program after Abdussabur called her home and recruited her. “This program has inspired me a lot,” she said. “I want to be a photographer.”

Eight-year-old Salwa, shown covering Monday’s event, also found out about the program at home — which is understandable, given that her last name is Abdussabur.

“Shafiq is the Nike of community police professionals — ‘Just Do It,’” said Mike Morand (pictured with Abdussabur behind him). Morand wore two hats at the Monday event: He represented the city library board and Yale’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs, both of which back the program. He spoke of visiting cities across the country where librarians or cops talk about new ways to address youth violence — while Abdussabur simply went out and starting doing it.

City Librarian James C. Welbourne predicted other cities would follow the lead of the experiment hatching in Dixwell. Welbourne (pictured with Stetson branch Manager Diane Brown-Petteway) noted that cities have struggled to figure out with how to use libraries as havens for teens in neighborhoods plagued by youth violence. Too often libraries simply set up a rec room of sorts — which leads to unstructured, unsupervised behavior that disrupts everybody without doing much for the kids. A tech room seems to work better than a rec room, especially with committed adults taking part.

“I think we’ve got a model here,” Welbourne said. A model of how libraries can teach kids a marketable tool (plus give them a chance to have fun in a safe, interesting way). And a model for how the cops, colleges, and libraries can work together to respond to the crisis facing kids in city neighborhoods.