New Haven Independent

Posted by: bill | April 14, 2009 1:39 PM

Lets stick to the facts her son was a crook.

Posted by: STYLENE | April 14, 2009 2:19 PM

MALIK JONES IS DEAD. THAT'S EXTREMELY UNFORTUNATE. EMMA JONES IS FIGHTING FOR WHAT SHE BELIEVES IS INJUSTICE. THAT'S COMMENDABLE. HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL REMEMBER THAT THOUGH HER SON LOST HIS LIFE, HE DID PUT THE LIVES OF OTHER PEOPLE IN DANGER THAT DAY. PERHAPS DOING GOD'S WORK INSTEAD OF WORKING THE PRESS, MIGHT BE A BETTER OPTION THAN GOING BACK AND FORTH TO COURT ALL THESE YEARS.

Posted by: Cheryl | April 14, 2009 2:57 PM

As a black female I must say I'm so tired of hearing this Malik Jones story. Malik was a wild child, so is Emma Jones ex husband Melvin Jones who is doing life. even though he is not the father of Malik, the apple dont fall far. sometimes the NAACP dont need to get involved with everything. I feel anyone should stop, when the police pull you over. I have stop and never try to take off. The only reason a person would try to take off, if your papers for you car in not right, or if you are up to something else that is not correct. Yes I'm a black sister. but we all know if we want to deal with this. that Malik was not correct. this is old, We really dont know who's right this case. but why havent cops shot at anyone else. Just stop, show your liscence and registration. and there should be no problems. unless you have DRUGS or a GUN. Malik was just like his stepfather Melvin Jones who killed that yale student yrs ago in the 1980's on broadway. got out and killed again. now hes away for good doing life. sometimes the NAACP fight for the wrong things and reason. Go to more schoold and help them out, you would do better if you help the young children out. I live right on Whalley and the NAACP office is right across the street. from where all the wild teenagers hang out. I dont see not once, where they invited them in. or even talk to them. NAACP do something for the community. You should stop feeling that we should have to have things our way, because we are black. lets get the education. fight for that. and not some drug dealer. I'm sorry I see it everyday. and your office is directly across from me. "

Posted by: givemeabreak | April 14, 2009 3:04 PM

Is this really news worthy! Malik Jones grew up down the street from me. Malik and his brother John were nothing but no good drug dealers!

Posted by: tom | April 14, 2009 5:09 PM

To all the folks that are now writing that malik was no good, where were you when the incident happened????????? thank you

Posted by: unprotected | April 14, 2009 5:15 PM

will BFAIR be weighing in on this subject? SOunds like peole want to move on and let this go...

Posted by: lance | April 14, 2009 5:25 PM

from an old paul bass article....

Malik Edward Jones -- Emma says it stands for "master of his destiny" in Arabic.......

WORD.

Posted by: tom14 | April 14, 2009 6:03 PM

Very well put Cheryl, you have hit the nail right on the head. People who run from the police, are committing a crime or have something to hide. The NAACP is an a great position to help the black community,whether it be education or community service the NAACP could do so much, yet sometimes the causes they support confuse me.

Posted by: k | April 14, 2009 6:22 PM

Cheryl..well said !!

Posted by: spike | April 14, 2009 6:22 PM

It's so easy to want to forget wrongdoing when you are not directly involved.I'm a police officer and I remember when that East Haven officer murdered that child. I remember seeing Emma Jones on the front steps of the p.d.,crying for her murdered son and I wanted to walk up to her ,hug her, and apologize for what that officer did to her child.Malik would have probably been issued a citation for the way he was driving that day ,,but that officer hunted him down and murdered him just for a misdemeanor citation...Where we forget about the boy, It willlive with Ms Jones forever that the cop hunted her son down and killed him...

Posted by: Thurgood M | April 14, 2009 8:14 PM

Cheryl, if you are black, you are a disgrace to your race. If I had a son who was murdered by the EHPD like Malik was, I would pursue justice until the day I die. It amazes me how many of you put down drug dealers here, then go to WTNH and post support for the legalization and decriminalization of drugs. Hypocrites!

Posted by: Beansie's Mom | April 14, 2009 8:31 PM

You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. Yes, Malik lived a dangerous life and paid the ultimate price for it. I have my 12 year old daughter alive today, to study, play and live on the streets of Fair Haven. She was just a month old when this unfolded from I-95 thru the city streets until Grand Avenue.

The fact remains that there are certain overly agressive pursuits by the East Haven police department. I'm thinking of the fatality a few years back on Eastern Street.

Knowledge is power. I don't feel that either Sister Emma or Father Manship accomplish a lot by playing to the cameras.

In my world, this is what I face now: How do you answer the paroled drug dealer who asks, why do the neighbors complain so much about a few drugs. There are worse things than selling a little grass or some crack.

What's worse. Let's try figure that out. Basically, adults can make their own decisions right or wrong. But children shouldn't be messed with.

True, if I had to chose between the low level dealer and the pedophiles or human traffickers, I'd probably side with the dealer. Or but isn't that what Lt. William White did. And isn't that why he now in prison. Problem with narcotics is all the collateral damage.

As the child of two parents who came to this country in a properly documented fashion I'm tired of hearing excuses. I'm still shaking my head over that breakdown at the highway entrance ramp by Dover Street.

Enough is enough. I'm not forgiving a drug user for jeapordizing the safety of my child. And I expect successful prosecutions.

Posted by: norton street | April 14, 2009 11:02 PM

bill, stylene, cheryl, gimmeabreak,

you are all so right. how dare that drug dealer think that he could just drive through east haven without being murdered by police. hear that! anybody who is in any way, no matter how small, involved with drugs deserves death by police handgun! all the college kids out there better watch out 'cause if you run from the ehpd, youll get bullets pumped into you until youre no longer alive. drugs stimulate your mind in ways that some people dont agree with so stay clear of 'em or get shot to death!

emma jones, keep fighting for justice, youre doing the right thing and i hope, one day, youre able to be at peace. rip malik jones.

Posted by: Boristt | April 15, 2009 8:25 AM

THURGOOD Why is cheryl a disgrace because shes telling it how it is. How longer is this going to go on,its over, next will have rev sharpton down here making up more lies.

Posted by: givemeabreak | April 15, 2009 8:30 AM

Norton St if Malik Jones pulled over he would be alive today! I guess in your world its ok to run from the police and try to run them down!

Posted by: Kells | April 15, 2009 9:24 AM

To everyone speaking ill of the deceased you should be ashamed. How dare you? I don't care what Malik may have done in his life, whatever, it was not worth him being killed by a hotheaded pig of a cop. Ms. Jones has to live everyday dealing with the horror from that day, and if she wants to continue to fight, who is she really hurting? All she wants is justice for her son. How can anyone be upset about that? If it was your child who was killed you would want the same thing.

Posted by: William Kurtz | April 15, 2009 10:44 AM

Cheryl,

I'm curious if you can clarify this seemingly nonsense statement:

Malik was a wild child, so is Emma Jones ex husband Melvin Jones who is doing life. even though he is not the father of Malik, the apple dont fall far.

The apple "don't fall far" from a non-relative? Or his mother with a law degree and his father, who I believe may still be a college professor in New York City?

Posted by: The Count | April 15, 2009 2:29 PM

Seems to me as though no one, but NO ONE, is asking this question: Could not Officer Floodquist have radioed the New Haven police and said the following?: "Am chasing a late model (car make and model), Connecticut license plate Alpha Bravo Charlie One Two Three, crossing the Q-Bridge. Please have 2 units give chase in the vicinity of (street)." Was Floodquist filled with THAT MUCH rage where he was hell bent on taking him down? I recall a statement earlier this year in which Mayor Almon said that New Haven police "chase [the criminals] out of New Haven, into East Haven," the only difference, I guess, being the New Haven police are not as "dedicated" as their East Haven counterparts.

Posted by: bunker | April 15, 2009 3:39 PM

That's funny "Count".

You should try listening to the New Haven Police scanner sometime when a chase from another town comes in to the city. The supervisor's and dispatchers IMMEDIATLEY tell ALL NHPD officers not to get involved no matter what the reason for the chase.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | April 15, 2009 4:09 PM

The Count

So, now you are in favor of New Haven police engaging in pursuit? I thought there was a no chase policy here? Do you want to have it both ways?

Posted by: tom | April 15, 2009 4:16 PM

kurtz

whats your point.....

Posted by: LastStraw | April 15, 2009 11:17 PM

"To all the folks that are now writing that malik was no good, where were you when the incident happened????????? thank you"

That "rationale" is getting awfully old. Shall I apply it to the Holocaust, lynchings in the South, the Irish potato famine, or 9/11??? I wasn't present for any of those events either.

Posted by: Boristt | April 16, 2009 7:43 AM

WILLIAM KURTZ thanks for informing us about the whole jones familys education, but weather he was selling drugs or reading a books.The bottom line is stop when the cops pull you over,we would not be having this conversation, but its over let it REST

Posted by: William Kurtz | April 16, 2009 11:13 AM

In his book, The Social Animal, psychologist Elliot Aronson describes disturbing rumors circulating immediately following the shootings of four students at Kent State. The two murdered girls were pregnant, the rumor went (a far more scandalous charge then than now) and all four bodies were covered in lice. Plus, they were suffering from such advanced cases of syphilis that they would have died soon anyway. All of this was patently untrue.

What's my point? Aronson goes on to theorize how these rumors started; when external events clash with internal perceptions, it causes tension and it's natural for us to feel that something has to give. Since we're generally unable to change the events, we have to change our perceptions. Since many of us place a high degree of trust and confidence in the police (partly by necessity, and because we have invested them with tremendous power and authority), it's threatening to have that trust eroded. Therefore, if it Malik Jones was killed by the police, it stands to reason he was a bad person who deserved it, right? Otherwise we have to confront the uncomfortable reality that the people to whom we have given power, authority and guns may not be completely trustworthy.

Picking on someone's grammar is a cheap shot, Tom, and I regretted that comment soon after I posted it. But the larger point about its significance stands; Cheryl's misapplying the aphorism about how the apple doesn't fall from the tree. To keep the fruit theme going, she's cherry-picking one example of a person in this young man's life who may have been a bad influence and using that example to rationalize her entire view of this incident, about which the only thing that can be said for certain is that it's far more complicated than anyone talking about it seems willing to acknowledge.

Was Malik Jones a drug-dealer? I dont' know, and I suspect that most of the people commenting here don't know either. Neither do I know if he was a drug user, or a thug, or a saint. I do know that I don't think using or selling drugs should be a capital crime--neither should being young and foolish. Although I do concede the point Borist and many other made: we would not be having this conversation if he had pulled over for the police as the law required him to, and it's disingenuous to ignore the contribution made by his own reckless behavior.

The relevant pages from The Social Animal:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_Cgus0bHvIQC&pg=PA179&dq=kent+state+rumors+victims+pregnant+lice&ei=o0bnSYiDDpu8M9CcibQB

page 179

Posted by: The Count | April 16, 2009 11:58 AM

"Fedup", there may be a "no-chase" policy now. I'm not sure one was in effect in 1997. And does the "no-chase" policy involve crossing city or state boundaries? All I'm saying is that, once Malik Jones' car crossed over into New Haven, technically it became a matter for the New Haven police. Floodquist could have followed Jones' car until the New Haven cops relieved him. I am not defending Malik Jones, nor do I condemn the East Haven police, but the matter could have been handled differently with a less tragic end.

Posted by: LADY B | April 16, 2009 4:28 PM

NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW HOW EMMA JONES FEELS!!!
JUST MAYBE IF SOME OF HER WORST CRITICS LOST A LOVE ONE TO VIOLENCE THEN MAYBE THEY WILL UNDERSTAND.

I FIND IT APPAULING FOR PEOPLE TO SAY SHE NEEDS TO GETOVER HER SONS DEATH. AS A MOTHER MYSELF I CANT IMAGINE LOSING A CHILD OR EVEN A RELATIVE NEVERTHELESS DUE TO VIOLENCE. THERE WAS NO EXCUSE POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE TO MURDER HER SON LIKE THAT. THAT WAS COMPLETE EXCESSIVE FORCE USED AND IT WAS VERY INHUMANE.

WE PLACE TOO MUCH TRUST INTO THE POLICE SYSTEM, FOR THEY ARE THE VERY ONES THAT NEED MORE TRAINING ON LESS VIOLENT TATICS ON SUBDUE-ING CITIZENS.

GOD BLESS MALIK AND THE JONES FAMILY.

Posted by: hope | April 16, 2009 5:03 PM

Some of these comments are so hurtful, Malik may have been a crook, wild child, all of the above, but he was still Emma's son, should she not mourn? EH police were not correct in the action, but it is over let her do what she feels she needs to do, to help others through the memory og HER son, it was her son, she is helping other people. Every police act is not correct...EH has been the most racist town forever

Posted by: lance | April 17, 2009 1:30 AM

spike, put your real name up G.

Posted by: Pat | April 17, 2009 11:09 AM

At some point Emma Jones should accept the fact that her son brought about his own death by his own lawlessness. Sad that he was killed but honestly, who would rather that he kept racing that car through the streets until he ran down a mother and child? Malik Jones could easily have killed people by speeding recklessly for such a long distance, running from the police instead of doing what all citizens are obligated to do - stop and obey a police officer's signal to pull over. Malike didn't care about he safety of anybody that night and he would have run down a kid in the street if it meant escaping arrest. It amazes me to see the NAACP's blind defense of such conduct. Jones' failure for over a decade to recognize her son was a persistant criminal and her constant blaming of the police for her own failures as a parent is getting REALLY tiresome.

Posted by: Bruce | April 17, 2009 2:55 PM

Reckless driving does not warrant a death penalty, regardless of prior convictions.

Posted by: bfair | April 17, 2009 6:03 PM

I cannot believe the hurtful, sick,inhumane responses made to Ms Jones who wants to put an end to racial profiling.Her child was savagely gunned down by those whom we have given awesome power to kill with inpunity. Initially I was not going to comment because the ignorance and grossly judgmental statements were not worthy of commentand yet "unprotected" needed to hear from me. Yes, I am for "moving on" from trauma but not forgetting it. Her son (regardless of what any of you think of him)was gunned down like a rabid animal. Maybe Malik should have stopped for the rabid officer and gotten hogtied and beaten within an inch of his life or sodomized with a plunger or lie on his stomach while an officer with his boot on his back shoots him point blank and kills him, or maybe lie still while a police dog bites you over 20 times or sit in car unarmed like Sean Bell and receive 50 shots,and on and on. If you are walking, bicycling or driving while Black and being targetted it's always best to stop for the officer so at least when he kills you the self righteous in this blog can't accuse you of fleeing or disobeying the lawless law.If you're tired of hearing from Emma turn the news channel,and don't read the articles written relative to her ordeal but don't demand she forget about how her son died.

Posted by: mskia | April 21, 2009 3:59 PM

For all of you concerned with Malik running down someone else, if memory serves me correctly, this shooting happened late at night...when SURLY there was no great "foot traffic" of Malik to run down. It has also ALWAYS been a question in my mind as to how Officer Floodquist could have felt like Malik would run him over while he was standing to the side of the vehicle.

But in the end, Malik was killed, East Haven is still racist and a number of people here act like Mrs. Jones should just "get over it". Until your child is killed by someone who is supposed to uphold the law (you know, innocent until proven guilty), you will never know what she feels. Regardless of what Malik had done in his past, he had not been sentenced to death by a jury of his peers. Officer Floodquist claimed that right for himself.

Posted by: carmen | April 28, 2009 1:19 AM

I knew malik very well, every effort emma makes is well worth it!