New Haven Independent

Posted by: Anonyme | August 22, 2008 10:03 AM

Welcome to Yale. Tell your friends.

Posted by: anon | August 22, 2008 10:10 AM

Both of these should result in 60 year prison sentences with no possibility of parole. The punishment needs to equal the severity of the crime, and the impact of that crime on the economy and society.

Can our legislators start pushing for tougher sentencing for violent crime?

Posted by: K | August 22, 2008 10:43 AM

Wow...welcome to America...and welcome to New Haven!

Posted by: eddie | August 22, 2008 11:58 AM

This is disturbing. New Haven has come a long way since the early 1990s, and the last thing we need now is a string of street muggings to send everybody running for the suburbs again. I hope the new chief can set aside his obsession with consensual sex crimes for a little while and get more patrols out to stop street violence.

Posted by: walt bradley | August 22, 2008 12:35 PM

Why did the department remove the state street officer, and why the hell arent' there bike cops back in that neighborhood?
king john's revenge for loosing the 10th ward to the greens?
unbelievable.

Posted by: Steve Ross | August 22, 2008 12:41 PM

On her first day here -- how depressing. Chief James Perrotti sent out an email this morning to Yale faculty, staff, and students with the following description, "The male is described as being approximately 25 years of age, chubby build, wearing a dark shirt, blue jeans and white cap."

Posted by: jackie | August 22, 2008 1:38 PM

so here's my question about that email--which i also received--is it more or less racist NOT to include demographic info in it?

because when i think dark shirt and white cap, i'm thinking white kid in a zoot suit and fedora...

how about we get real, people? why is it considered so poisonous to be honest about who commits violent crime here. why do we have to walk on eggshells? leaving out demographic details (i am talking about a police report, not the paper, although i also believe the same applies) simply frustrates innocent people who feel that perpetrators are being protected in some way.

to the point: it seems to me far more insidious and encourages more racism to allow us simply to ASSUME that, yeah, it was (probably) a black male.

i don't get it. then again, maybe it was a white guy in a zoot suit.

Posted by: East Rock | August 22, 2008 1:43 PM

Gotta love that description from the chief?

Was he Asian? Hispanic? White? Black? Blonde? Dark hair? Blue Eyes? Afro? Long Hair?

Everyone is so worried about being PC that they won't even describe an assailant.

Shit now I have to worry about every chubby 25 year old in East Rock LOL

Posted by: robn | August 22, 2008 3:31 PM

Note to New Haven Police...an assailant description which includes skin color isn't racist, its common sense. Not to mention height.

Posted by: Edward_H | August 22, 2008 7:47 PM

As a charter memboer of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Chubby People) I am shocked and offended the police would describe the assailant as "chubby". They are causing undue fear of chubby people throughout the community. Chubby people are not all criminals. And while you are at it. The police should stop giving the sex of suspects as well. I am tired of being made to feel all men are criminals.

Posted by: Cahoon | August 22, 2008 9:25 PM

Did anyone question Wilbur Cross student body?

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | August 23, 2008 7:00 AM

ROBN,

You're asking for common sense in New Haven?

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | August 23, 2008 7:29 AM

As a man, I am deeply offended by seeing the sex of the suspect being revealed. Just because the majority of street crimes are committed by males, you are leaving the impression that we are responsible for all street crimes! Men are being unfairly singled out and victimized in this city of tolerance!! I want justice!!! Where's Kica Matos when we need her? Where's the ACLU??

Posted by: DAFeder | August 23, 2008 8:22 AM

Hi Jackie (and others),

Not sure you were going in this direction, but check out the wikipedia entry for "zoot suit riots." The racial issues around the clothes (Eleanor Roosevelt said "race riots") are super interesting.

David

Posted by: LastStraw | August 23, 2008 8:53 AM

According to the police scanner, which was awfully abuzz that night, the guy was black, most likely in his early 20's.
What I don't get is why everyone wants the description so badly. I'm pretty sure the guy went home and changed by now.
At the risk of sounding, um, exclusionary, the cops didn't need to spend all night searching back yards (show of force?) -- we're all pretty sure the guy lives within the Mechanic/Lawrence/Eagle/Nash ghetto that's popped up in the past few years.

Posted by: Anonymous | August 23, 2008 10:13 AM

"The description put out by the police of the mugger who took the woman's purse at
452 Orchard St., and shot her is a most interesting one. Assuming that the first
thing he would do is to change his clothes, it would be most helpful if we know
whether he is Asian, Black, Caucasian or Hispanic. I wonder why that critical bit
of information was not included. I sincerely hope it is not because we are expected
to make an assumption. Whatever happened to community policing and block watches?"

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 23, 2008 10:55 AM

I am sorry she had this happen. But Yale needs to start educating these kids before they come. Alot of them lack common sense. When the kids that come in ask me what is the area like I am honest with them. If you are from small town USA you are going to be in culture shock, if you are from NYC this is the country. My neighbor is from the bronx and her family calls New Haven the country. It is all a matter of what life experiences you have had. And never walk alone at night, even in the better parts of town. And for gods sake don't leave you stuff in your car! It was refershing that the mayor has finely admitted the obvious about new haven.

Posted by: jackie | August 23, 2008 11:51 AM

(sorry, this post is long and rambly) ... btw, david--had no idea about the zoot suits; interesting, though.

cedarhill: it's true, some of us yalies are pretty clueless, and of course we all (univ-affiliated and not) have our reasons for saying that new haven is safer than it really is. since my friends were mugged i now know how fine the line is between optimism and naivete. but, as you say, finally the mayor has gotten *somewhat* "real." but this happened at 8 pm on whitney--not a place you would expect to get shot while moving in.

i think that's what shocked me most about new haven, is that "nice" neighborhoods are smack up against others where poverty, violence, and a "thug" mentality are rampant, and the latter target the former sometimes. no intervening "blue collar" neighborhoods, etc. that's a big difference for those of us even coming from bigger cities like NY and Boston.

the real irony is that attacks like these make those of us who had been unconditionally sympathetic toward the urban poor far less so when we get held up at gunpoint by one of them or are made to feel as if targeted by them. because all you end up seeing in the end are the "thug" wannabes and their "fronts" and how they look down on work and academic success as "white" (overheard on whalley), which could in fact be their true freedom. and then all the good people who are trapped among the rancid apples get lost in the shuffle.

we will take that with us for the rest of our lives, wherever we go: it will affect how we vote, what kinds of communities we build, and, i'm afraid, what we teach our children about the values and "potential" of the urban poor. it will be difficult to tell them with a straight face that the majority of them "want to live just, peaceful, and productive lives" like we do.

but obviously our white-capped chubster wasn't thinking about that, because he's already made up his mind about what he thinks about the rest of us. in fact, he's probably never bothered to try to see anyone else's point of view to start with.

Posted by: Esteban | August 23, 2008 11:55 AM

New Haven ceded itself to the Democratic Party, the ACLU, NAACP, and the Labor Unions over 50 years ago. It has reaped what it has sown: high crime, high taxes, high insurance rates, political corruption and social myopia. The same idiots that scream about the evils of surveillance cameras are the first to complain when a mugging hits home. They complain about "infringements" of their personal rights when automatically photographed blowing through red lights, or feel somehow threatened by the idea of a youth curfew, or don't want vehicles spot checked for registration and insurance. These are the same people who scream about muggings and burglaries in their neighborhoods, hit and run vehicular murders, shootings and drug crimes. In New Haven, a lack of clear thinking enables criminals to thrive.

Posted by: JZ | August 23, 2008 12:31 PM

If I remember correctly, the Yale chief of police (who issued that bulletin) was highly criticized the last time he sent an email describing an assailant. He described him as a black male and for some reason a whole storm of criticism came down from the local NAACP or other such power players.

--can't remember the whole story. Last summer, maybe?

Shame to see the Yale police handicapped by that.

Posted by: robn | August 23, 2008 1:02 PM

Best advice for would be mugging victims (provided by officer Joe Avery) is to remember the muggers shoes. That's one of the most unique identifiers in street crime.

Posted by: JackNH | August 23, 2008 1:59 PM

Dear Cedar Hill Resident: yes, Yale needs to do a better job informing its newcomers to New Haven about personal security. But I wonder how much it will help. My unit did have an orientation session two years ago when a foreign graduate student was mugged. But the Yale officials refused to answer repeated questions about what parts of town are the MOST dangerous. This is an important question, since folks have to decide where to live. All they would say in response is that crimes can occur anywhere. True enough, but obviously they occur more in some places than others. I'll also say that I see Yale students walking around at 1 am or later, tipsy after a party, talking on their cellphones or plugged into their iPods-- an invitation to get mugged. Dumb, dumb.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 23, 2008 11:44 PM

Jack NH they were right everywhere is a place you can get mugged. I live in Cedar Hill A higher crime area, lived here for over 6 years. I have never got robbed. And I am out on the street chacing the drug dealer and atticts out. Police have to much on there plate, so we have to do it ourselves...I figure if I get shot maybe well get a cop (jk I know we won;t get one). But my point is it dose not matter...check ou the link in the side bar Crime log it show where the crimes are. You really just have to travel in twos and pay attention. My mother taught me a trick when I was a kid...which I have used seveal times in my life if you think that thier is someone not cool following you walk up to the door of the nearest house and go in or ring the bell and lay low till they leave. Not a way to live, but this is what the world is like (not just New Haven)

Jackie
The mayor has slowly and steadily pushed the middle class out. That bumper will soon be gone like it is in Harford. They underestimated the importance of the middle class. My guess is with in the next decade new have will consist of rich poor and yale students. And it will get worse. And it will be blamed on this administration for their lovely tax phase in (taxation with our representation) The city found a loop whole to increase tax 20 % a year for five years. Illegal by most standards and is making may middle class live for the suburbs. And the richer people are moving in....but they do not do much and demand more from city services. Sorry going off track, but I do agree that city need the middle class or they end up like hartford that is why many large citys have rent control... to prvent them from leaving. And prevent greed m and fers

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | August 24, 2008 6:44 AM

JZ

If I'm not mistaken, the chief had put out a description of "youths on bicycles" last summer for an alert to the community. Some black activist made a stretch of reason to find that offensive! He created a stereotype to debunk and protect it. Of course, all guilty white libs bought into it and put that off limits.

Gotta love progressives!

Posted by: Lamont Moye | August 24, 2008 2:30 PM

On my birthday, August 22, no surprise. We want lower property taxes and a greater police presence. That's like everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Well, we need to step up our game. I live on Highland street and have heard my share of gun fire. We would be foolish to believe the new police chief is going to stop crime. If so, he would have been here 20 yrs. ago. THe NHPD needs the help of the community. Due to the lost of trust in the NHPD these kids who have guns and want to turn them in are afraid. I plan to collect guns off the street and turn them in myself. We must began playing leadership roles. Black or white crimes in the city of New Haven affects us all! Bring back the gun buy back program

Posted by: Kevin | August 24, 2008 2:47 PM

As East Rock suggests, a detailed description would have been useful if it was available. But knowing the attacker's race, by itself or even in conjunction with gender, is next to useless. In the city alone, there are about 20,000 black males, about 15,000 Hispanic males, and about 15,000 non-hispanic white males.

Posted by: Bild Wissenschaftler | August 24, 2008 10:41 PM

Laststraw - interesting about the Mechanic Eagle Lawrence Nash ghetto. So it's new? Do you know where it came from? Section 8?

I wonder whether New Haven's been trying to spread its crime around various neighborhoods by giving section 8 vouchers to the crime-prone poor, as Hanna Rosin describes in Memphis...

Hanna Rosin blames inner-city poor for crime, horrifies bien-pensant academics
__________________________

Esteban - quite right!
__________________________

Kevin - let's say the shooter was a black male - describing him as such immediately reduces the pool of potential suspects by sixty percent based on your figures. In what way is that "next to useless"? Surely there are also tens of thousands of 25-year-old men in the city and yet that piece of information was included in the description. Is not the value of a description in the sum total of its elements and not in any individual element? Can you possibly believe that the shooter's race is not useful to someone looking for the suspect?

___________________________________________

In New York, blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 98 percent of shooting suspects in 2008 (see link below); there's no reason to think New Haven is any different.

Heather Mac Donald States Taboo Statistics on Shootings in NYC

Why Cops Stop and Frisk So Many Blacks

No The Cops Didn't Murder Sean Bell

___________________________________

Below is the episode where Chief Perrotti made the mistake of including factual information about the race of a crime suspect and was promptly re-educated for his thoughtcrime.

Yale Chief Apologizes for Mistakenly Revealing Race of Crime Suspect

Tyler Hill
Contributing Reporter
Published Friday, October 14, 2005

"In a meeting with the Black Student Alliance at Yale Tuesday, University Police Chief James Perrotti apologized for identifying an assailant in a local robbery by his race in a Sept. 19 e-mail to the Yale community.

"The e-mail, which Perrotti sent to all Yale students, faculty and staff regarding a mugging that took place on Edgewood Avenue Sept. 18, referred to the suspect as a "black male in his late teens or early twenties." In the following days, Perrotti said, several students contacted him to express their concern about what they believed was racial profiling in the e-mail."

Posted by: Disgusted60'sBoomer | August 25, 2008 6:54 AM

That street thug committed a viscious crime out of a sense of entitlement perpetuated by liberals who stir up such emotions of the inner city dwellers oppression while doing nothing to help them achieve a sense of repsonsibility to help themselves out of their sitations.

This is based on my riding the city buses that average creative class liberal would never board to see the same young girls with babies, the young children being hit to sit still rather than read to, and the resentful "this is our turf" glower at middle class whites who take the bus out of environmental concerns as I saw forty years ago.

Posted by: Bruce | August 25, 2008 10:14 AM

Esteban: None of the things you mentioned (surveillance cameras, red light cameras, spot registration checks, curfew) would have prevented this mugging. Any other ideas?

The new chief has his work cut out for him. This idea of posting photos of people seeking hookers was a cheap publicity stunt. Time to get to work fixing our neighborhoods before the mass exodus. More crime + higher taxes = move to the burbs where it's cheaper and safer.

Posted by: East Rock | August 25, 2008 11:20 AM

People keep getting angry for the new chief " wasting his time" on the hookers and Johns. I for one applaud it. The base problem with Hookers is not the actual act but the fact they are most likely doing it for drugs. By hurting the drug users (hookers) you are in turn hurting the drug dealers/pushers.

Its very likely that this mugger in east rock committed this crime to get drug money. Anything we can do to hurt the bottom line of crime can only help.

Keeping Hookers and Johns out of New Haven can only be viewed as a positive in my opinion.

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | August 25, 2008 12:14 PM

Perhaps NHPD will issue a politically correct description of the assailant. I'd suggest something like this:

Person of mass, racially unpredominant, ethnically numerically challenged, socially misaligned.

Posted by: Steve Ross | August 25, 2008 1:27 PM

Disgusted,

I find it interesting that you assert such an opinion based on your findings on the city bus; your perception wholely differs from mine.

My own bus riding experiences have been quite different. I admit that I've seen my share of weird incidents: that I've heard vicious arguments, seen people junk-sick, etc., but by in large it's pretty casual -- a lot of people reading, playing handheld poker games, people-watching, and being bored. To be fair, I've just ridden the Q, O, B, and East Haven>Chapel lines over the past several years.

In any case, I feel that none of these observations are criteria to judge the effect of political leanings or diminished civic responsibility in the city.

Posted by: Walt | August 25, 2008 5:01 PM

Cedar Hill

If you are really middle class (defined by Obama as earning $250,000 or more per year) you could buy Cedar Hill and throw out the undesirables.

Just kidding. I thought I was OK and "middle class" too, until Obama re-defined it recently.

Alas, now I am poor per his terms

As to Cedar Hill, my perception as an old Fair Havenite is that it goes from James St. to Grace St. on the western side of State back to the park, sort of a triangle.

Am I right?

Posted by: Esteban | August 25, 2008 7:27 PM

Bruce, my ideas are easy to dismiss in the absence of your own. Talk is cheap...especially yours.

Posted by: anynmous | August 25, 2008 11:35 PM

This is ridiculous. I'm 18 years old, and although I dont live in The East Rock Area, I spend most of my time there, as my best friends live there and I went to school at Wilbur Cross. On sunday night, My friends and I were sitting on My friend's porch, saying goodbye before we left for college, and all of the sudden, two black men approached us, walked up onto the porch, and pulled out a gun. the man with the gun was wearing a stocking cap to conceal his face, while the other one was not wearing anything. The guy with the gun cocked it in my face, and pointed it at me, saying that if Didn't give him everything I had, he was going to put two bullets in the back of my head. they preceded to rob us of our wallets and cell phones, while making a large amount of death threats, while finally making us lay down on the ground until they took off on foot. We all thought we were going to be killed because the gun they were carrying was an extremely large semi-automatic handgun, which was loaded. Luckily none of us were injured, But It's just terrible that it has come to the point where you cant even be safe sitting on your own porch. Now, these two men will most likely continue to roam the streets, and its scary to think what will happen to their next victims. Although I love the East Rock neighborhood, anyone who is walking the streets, especially at night, should really be as vigilant as possible, because I would hate to have anyone be in the same position that me and my friends were in.

Posted by: Steve Ross | August 26, 2008 8:59 AM

Anyn,

Did you report this to the police? Where in East Rock were you?

Posted by: jawbone | August 26, 2008 4:47 PM

Steve Ross,
The incident described by Anyn sounds like the Humphrey St. robbery that was described in the NHI sidebar entitled "L.Wharf Footchase" crime roundup. Is that correct Anyn? If so, it has been reported to the NHPD because Sgt. Joe Avery reported it.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | August 26, 2008 9:35 PM

JAWBONE

Good thing Lt. Sweeney didn't handle the report. May not have been considered a crime!

Posted by: Kevin | August 31, 2008 5:46 PM

Bild Wissenschaftler

No.

As I said in my earlier post, having a good description would have been helpful. If the victim was able to identify the assailant as a black, male 25-year old, you would talking about a couple of hundred of possible suspects rather than thousands. I have no problem including race as part of the description, if there is enough information to make it useful to the public. Simply saying that the suspect was a black (or white or Hispanic) male does not meet that threshold.