New Haven Independent

Eliezer Greer (pictured left with Pastor Charles Lewis), founder of an armed Edgewood citizens patrol, announced Monday that he would board a plane for North Carolina early Tuesday morning. On the ground, he said, he will meet with High Point’s Police Chief James Fealy for an exchange about the potential of his new approach to community policing.

The High Point method — which relies on a subtle mix of theatrics, legal muscle and community participation to convince dealers that a life of crime is not in their best interest — has attracted attention from nationwide news sources since last fall. An article , published in the Wall Street Journal in September, 2006, prompted police departments in mid-size cities across the country - including New Haven - to seek inspiration from High Point’s success in reducing its crime rate.

Police Chief Cisco Ortiz said last week that he hoped to gain a better understanding of the High Point method by seeing it up close.

Why was Eliezer Greer - who has no affiliation to City Hall or the NHPD, and has often clashed with Ortiz - taking a privately-funded trip to High Point?

“We look forward to eye-opening conversations in North Carolina tomorrow and hope that, at long last, City officials’ trip to High Point next week will be followed by meaningful change and not just one more stunt,” read a statement from Greer’s group.

That remark echoed the words of Chief Ortiz himself, who last week said that he was not interested in importing “gimmicks” to the city of New Haven. But despite sharing a taste for tough-cop talk, the relationship between Greer and Ortiz has been strained over the past month, as members of the EPDP have blasted the police department for its alleged failure to address crime in their neighborhood.

Greer repeated this criticism Monday, saying that crime-fighting measures recently proposed by the NHPD - such as fielding more bike cops to fight street crime - suffered from mismanagement and were unequal to the task of taking on drug dealers and criminal gangs.

“Promises have not been met,” he said, referring to a number of encounters with top police brass during which Greer’s Edgewood Park Defense Patrol and other groups called for increased foot and bike patrols. “People expect a basic nominal level of security. That is not being met on a daily basis.”

Then, in characteristic high oratorical style, he added, “New Haven is not Ramadi or Baghdad, as far as I can tell…Too much innocent blood has been spilled on the altar of incompetence.”

Speaking to reporters in front of the police substation at Norton and Whalley, Greer said his trip was not intended to trump Ortiz’s visit next week. It had been funded by an anonymous third party to ensure that the neighborhood group would not be left out of talks about the future of policing in New Haven. In particular, Greer said he was personally interested in learning how Fealy had managed to reduce crime in his district by 20 percent — but also in giving him a “complete understanding of the New Haven situation from someone who’s not a cop” before he meets with Chief Ortiz on Aug. 14.

“I’m not necessarily encouraged by Ortiz’s visit to North Carolina,” Greer said, adding that New Haven needs “more patrolmen in the streets—not chiefs making statements.”

City officials said Greer’s trip to North Carolina did not interfere with their plans.

“Everybody has the liberty to take a trip,” said Jessica Mayorga, head of communications at City Hall.

“We always welcome partnerships with community groups,” she went on. “But what we don’t agree with is groups carrying weapons.”

Monday’s press conference was held against a backdrop of ongoing violence in the streets of New Haven. A triple-shooting in the Hill Sunday night left three victims - two men and a woman - in varying conditions as they recovered from serious gunshot wounds, and a 24-year-old was shot in the calf Saturday on Congress Avenue and West Street. Since the beginning of the summer, a string of violent crimes, including a spike in shootings, has sparked a vigorous community debate about the merits of current police tactics, with many New Haveners calling for a return to the community policing model of the early 1990s.

Chief Ortiz said last week that he has applied for a $1 million federal grant to implement the High Point crime-fighting method in New Haven. If the grant money fails to materialize, he added, City Hall has pledged to advance the funds.

Mayorga insisted that whatever plan was implemented would be tailored to New Haven’s needs.

“We probably aren’t going to replicate it one hundred percent,” she said. “High Point has High Point issues. New Haven has New Haven issues.”