New Haven Independent

Posted by: JMS | May 18, 2009 9:20 AM

Good job NHPD and good job neighbor for calling it in. I saw a large group (8-10) of illegal ATV riders crossing Whalley Ave. heading towards Edgewood Park at about 3:30pm yesterday. I wonder if it was the group that ran from the scene. Keep crackin' down NHPD.

Posted by: anon | May 18, 2009 9:25 AM

Good work, NHPD. If the city would immediately arrest all ATV riders as soon as they were spotted, we'd be much better off.

Posted by: robn | May 18, 2009 9:48 AM

"We came to ride in the parade...Somebody told us it was a motorcycle parade." DelValle

Yeah right...and the typical reaction of a parade participant is to flee police presence?

You guys aren't wanted in ANY part of this town. Thanks NHPD!

Posted by: NLJ | May 18, 2009 10:06 AM

Bravo. We need to get citizens to work together with police to get these bikes off the road and out of the parks. I am glad that police responded so quickly -- this is what it takes!

Posted by: jawbone | May 18, 2009 10:13 AM

Not in New Haven, DelValle, not anymore.

Posted by: Daniel | May 18, 2009 10:24 AM

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you NHPD for setting up this quad squad and thank you Cheif Lewis for doing a great job in our city. I recently had another amazing interaction with the police over in Fair Haven with both dispatch and officers responding quickly and professionally to calls about neighborhood violence. This year I'm finally feeling like the police and New Haveners are on the same side. Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Margaret | May 18, 2009 10:31 AM

These quotes give me pause: "One was caught on Norton Parkway near Whalley Avenue as he tried to escape, according to Bombalicki" and "Earlier that day, Hassett pursued, but lost, a group of law-flouting ATV riders on Whalley Avenue."

Like other readers, I applaud the NHPD for taking the problem of illegal ATV-use seriously, but I also think that our community has a responsibility to keep a watchful and thoughtful eye on how we approach this problem. The no-chase policy exists to protect officers and young people from injury resulting from dangerous and chaotic chases. Let's be sure that we don't accept practices that endanger our kids and our cops in our zeal to get these bikes off the streets.

Posted by: Beaver Hill Resident | May 18, 2009 10:52 AM

"They came here because they [heard] it was legal to ride their bikes" in New Haven, said the lieutenant (Bombalecki). For years the citizens of New Haven have been told that the police could not chase ATV and motorized dirt bike riders so nothing was done to get them off the streets. No wonder the word was out that you could get away with riding anything in New Haven. You didn't need a license. You didn't need to be of age. You could make as much noise as you wanted to, and you could destroy public property. Now, thanks to the new attitudes and tactics of Chief Lewis and Lts. Bombalecki and Hassert, the perception that "Anything Goes" in New Haven has altered. It will take a while, but if the police squad keeps at it, law-abiding citizens will find that they live in a more civilized and peaceful community.

Posted by: bebe1222 | May 18, 2009 11:31 AM

great job !! i also want to comment on the no-chase policy...newark,nj has the same policy and it is now the car theft capital of the world . i lived in union county/essex county for 2 years and you would actually see tow trucks for hire that would steal cars right from in front of people's homes.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | May 18, 2009 11:34 AM

Sunday at %pm hmmm HELLO I think the parade was over

Posted by: Streever | May 18, 2009 11:53 AM

Margaret: I definitely agree that it's something to keep in mind--with that being said, I think Chief Lewis had some compelling arguments for chasing. Mostly, this behavior encourages & creates an atmosphere of lawlessnes that in and of itself escalates the behavior.

An ER nurse I know told me what happened about a week ago--a local man was brought into the ER after a severe beating by ATV riders. They had surrounded his car, and used their ATVs to stop him. He got out to confront them, & then they beat him so badly he needed an ambulance trip to the ER.

These individuals aren't just some nice kids having fun & flipping the bird to the police. Some of them are violent, angry, & confrontational all on their own.

Let's not forget what happened last summer, when the natural result of lawlessly zipping about on ATVs resulted in one of their deaths & the atrocious beating of an innocent man.

Let's also not forget that a lot of this goes unreported--like the beating the other week.

Make friends with some ER docs & nurses. You'll be amazed at the things going on in your own community.

Posted by: Streever | May 18, 2009 11:53 AM

Oh and P.S.
Great work NHPD! Thank you.

Posted by: MORRIS COVE MF | May 18, 2009 1:19 PM

I'm confused. He was arrested next to his bike? That's like arresting a drunk man standing next to a car! While I'm all for keeping our roads safe, was the arrest actually legal? I'm confused on point.

Posted by: norton street | May 18, 2009 1:38 PM

some of my earliest, fondest memories of growing up in new haven was a culture of bikes. my brothers teaching me how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, then later showing me how to ride dirt bikes. now ive encouraged several of my friends to get motorcycles instead of cars (for economic, environmental, and parking reasons). when i was in elementary school i used to look up to the guys riding motorized bikes at goffee street park while i played basketball. when i was a little older i would get to hop on someones bike and ride around for a short time, and after that they eventually let me take it out on my own for a little while around age 12-13. the guys that im talkin about would ride on the gravel roads in the park, not the grass and when they did go out into the street, they stopped at lights, stop signs and drove at a reasonable speed. it seems that the kids today are reckless, unreasonable, and doing more than just trying to have fun. and although dirt bikes are loud so are lawn mowers, people honking horns, construction zones, etc. for me, part of urban life is motorized bikes, its just always been there, to me. it is a positive thing when police confiscate dangerous riders because they are a threat to everyone. but i feel that there is a legitimate place for dirt bikes in the urban environment.

as for the neighbor calling the cops on these guys. i think that there is a better way to go about this. what i do when i see something i dont like going on, for this example ill use drug dealing. there used to be a group on teens who sold between 11pm-3-4am across the street from my house about 4-5 years ago. i knew there was an old woman who lived in one of the apartments at the house across the street and i assumed atleast some of the teens lived there as well. i also assumed this woman was scared to call the police on them, so when the teens would be making too much noise, breaking bottles, yelling, etc. i would open my window and yell "if you dont clear it out, im calling the cops". the first time i did this, they yelled back at me, cursing looking for rocks to throw. so i said "listen, im not trying to send you to jail, im giving you a chance to just leave, take it." after about 5 minutes they had left. for the next couple months i would probably tell them to clear it out once or twice a week, generally when they were getting too loud at night. after those two months, i never saw them again, i assume they moved their business inside or somewhere else.

i wish this neighbor had confronted these guys and just let them know the law and that if they didnt stop, they would have to call the police. jails are not the place for nonviolent people, and the police are a last resort.

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | May 18, 2009 2:23 PM

Wonder if the radical bikists on this website would support immediate arrests of sidewalk riding bikers?

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 18, 2009 3:43 PM

This does not sound right,I ask a lawyer friend of mine and,He told me that if The ones who try to ride away from the police on the bikes,They are subject to arrest,Because it is illegal to ride these ATV in New Haven,So the ones who try to get away on there bikes should have been arrested.But if this guy Delvalle and the others that said that they was just taking there bikes off the truck and the police arrested them,Then they have a good
lawsuit for false arrest due to the fact that it is not illegal to own a ATV,You just can not use them new haven.Rember the bikes had been stored in the back of the truck,So the ones who did not start up there bikes and was just taking the bikes out of the back of the truck and did not ride away may have a Lawsuit.

Posted by: funky chicken | May 18, 2009 4:25 PM

Hi Norton Street:

I respect your POV but I feel that this exact attitude of permissiveness and that "they are not really doing anything bad" is not the way to go and brought us to the point today where we have idiots popping wheelies on Whalley Ave on a Quad and the neighbors are scared to even speak out against the drug dealers. We have to destroy the "No Snitching" attitude and take back our streets.

Posted by: Sharon Bass | May 18, 2009 4:43 PM

It seems New Haven cops are leery about ticketing bicyclists on sidewalks. As a daily walker on Whalley Avenue, I'm constantly dodging bicyclists zooming toward me from behind. I've been sideswiped by one who then fled down a side street; didn't even have the decency to see if I was OK. So I talked to a few cops around town about these scofflaws. They said there is a unit for this but after a story ran in the local media and reader response was negative about ticketing the bikers, they've basically stopped upholding the law. Imagine, you get a little flak from residents so law enforcers stop doing their job. One funny/disturbing note: I recently spotted a cop riding his bike on the sidewalk. Wish I had my camera with me.

Posted by: Streever | May 18, 2009 5:13 PM

Sharon:
police are allowed to ride on the sidewalk. With that being said, I have been sideswipped on Whitney, by a young man who almost knocked over a woman and her baby--his co-worker, it turned out. When I called out, "Be careful", he turned and yelled, "F YOU".

Norton Street said:
"i wish this neighbor had confronted these guys and just let them know the law and that if they didnt stop, they would have to call the police. jails are not the place for nonviolent people, and the police are a last resort."

Sorry Norton. I STRONGLY advise you NOT talk to these people. You have no way of knowing which ones are the ones who have senselessly beat several people in the city already.

Several people have been sent to the ER from vicious, unprovoked attacks by ATV riders.

While the cyclists riding dangerously is a problem, at least none have yet beat a man so viciously he had to be taken to the ER.

AGAIN: Talk to some people who work at the Yale Trauma center. This is real, it's happening, and it's received 0 press recently. There are people on ATVs beating the living hell out of others. I fully support the NHPD crackdown. Keep up the awesome work. We have a culture of violence & lawlessness, & it will take years to fix it.

Posted by: norton street | May 18, 2009 6:19 PM

streever, i think its a bit ridiculous to equate atv riding with random beatings.

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/05/crime_roundup_18.php

does that mean everytime a person sees a panhandler they call the cops instead of ignoring or confronting the person?

the idea of "not approaching anyone that you dont know because of the possibility of an ass kicking" could apply to anyone, to single out atv riders is paranoid. i feel bad for the guy in the situation you mentioned earlier but that doesnt have to do with atv's it has to do with unstable people who turn to violence without thinking.

funky chicken,
all i can say is that it doesnt really bother me. hearing the sound of an engine rev brings me back to my childhood. its like my mom, she grew up in virginia, and when we used to visit family i would hate the smell of farms and cows and all that but she would "like" it because it made her think of her childhood. so even though its objectively a bad smell, it didnt bother her at all, quite the opposite. and i feel that the larger problem in new haven isnt so much "drug dealing" and "atv riding" its these activities over time(which you were getting at). some teen sellin a little pot, maybe some harder drugs to an adult isnt so bad. but that teen doing this for years, and getting his friends to do it, and selling to other kids is what destroys communities. like i said, i used to ride atvs, it was fun but by the time i was 15 i had other things to do, so i never got to the point where i was going out into the street, weeving in and out of traffic, blowing lights, etc. because i didnt do this activity for a prolonged time. so i feel the issue is people not growing up, finding purpose, finding something else to concentrate on, so they keep doing the same things over and over, getting worse and worse, more extreme until there is a culture of extremes, instead of a variety of people doing a variety of things.

Posted by: Coolidge | May 18, 2009 6:44 PM

Blog, chatter, ramble, babble and whine... Chief Lewis and his boys (NHPD) will be relentless this summer, you go on making blog noise while they take back our streets.
Go Lewis!

Posted by: working(too hard) mom | May 18, 2009 8:33 PM

THREEFIFTHS-I reread the article....the dude that stayed basically got a $75 ticket for not having a license and was released. The ones that fled and got caught were arrested.

Posted by: Walt | May 19, 2009 8:23 AM

Nice going neighbor!

Nice going cops!

Keep it up.!

Posted by: Sergio Rodriguez | May 19, 2009 9:45 AM

Great job local blockwatch member and great job NHPD.

Posted by: JMS | May 19, 2009 10:38 AM

Norton Street,

I understand your point about the ATV menace being just one symptom of a larger problem. But the larger problem will only begin to fix itself when these kids (and their parents) become painfully aware that these kinds of activities will no longer be tolerated by their community. Through both police and neighborhood vigilance resulting in arrests, trouble, tickets, fines, etc. that message is being sent and I think the vast majority of New Haven residents strongly support it.

JMS

Posted by: me | May 19, 2009 10:40 AM

Norton Street - what wasn't reported was that one ATVer was found to have a handgun. Don't approach them, call the police.

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | May 19, 2009 12:18 PM

You see, none of the radical bikists will support arrests of sidewalk bikers!

Why?

Because (secret): they do it, too!

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 19, 2009 1:37 PM

Working(Too Hard) Mom
Read it again,Delvalle said that he was taking the bike out from the back of the truck when the police arrested him and told him,He was going to jail,Then they gave him a 75.00 ticket for operating a vehicle without a license.Now my point is if he was just taking the bike out of the back of this truck and did not start the bike up and started riding this bike,How can you give him a ticket for operating a vehcle without a license,This is the part that does not sound right to me.Also did you know that you can buy these bikes with out a license and tow them to a track and ride them,I found out a lot of people do this.Read again and you will see my point.

Posted by: Morris Cove | May 19, 2009 5:26 PM

Threefiths

Who cares if they didn't start the bikes (ATV), that was there intent, " They drove from Harlem ", these bikes are unregistered, and you can't get insurance for them, so when they ride like idiots and slam into innocent people, who is going to pay for the medical bills?

Why don't you ask your lawyer buddy that one?, by the way great job NHPD....I know it's hard for you to give credit when it's due.

Posted by: Melissa Bailey | May 19, 2009 5:49 PM

Hi folks.

A point of clarification: Police said that the suspects had already started riding their bikes up and down the street when the neighbor spotted them.

DelValle claimed it wasn't true in his case.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 19, 2009 10:17 PM

Morris Cove
Wrong again Mr.Law and Order,Read!!!!!!!!! The law
You can purchase a car or motor bike with out insurance and and tow it to you home and as long as you donot put them on the road you donot not even have to register them.So by law morris cove
if he was not riding this bike on the street,He do nothing Illegal according to the law.As far as for people in this state who get into a accident without insurance all they pay is a 200.00 fine.So i will say it one more time,The ones who got arrested for riding the bikes should face what every the law gives them,But this other guy if he was taking
the bike off the truck and was not riding the bike then he can beat the arrest,Due to the fact that as long as you do not ride on the road with the unregistered vehicle you can not be charge with operating a vehcle with out a license or no insurance.

Posted by: laststraw | May 19, 2009 10:46 PM

Posted by: Sharon Bass | May 18, 2009 4:43 PM

It seems New Haven cops are leery about ticketing bicyclists on sidewalks. As a daily walker on Whalley Avenue, I'm constantly dodging bicyclists zooming toward me from behind. I've been sideswiped by one who then fled down a side street; didn't even have the decency to see if I was OK. So I talked to a few cops around town about these scofflaws. They said there is a unit for this but after a story ran in the local media and reader response was negative about ticketing the bikers, they've basically stopped upholding the law. Imagine, you get a little flak from residents so law enforcers stop doing their job. One funny/disturbing note: I recently spotted a cop riding his bike on the sidewalk. Wish I had my camera with me."

Welcome to New Haven, Sharon. The cops did target bicyclists on sidewalks -- mostly Yale Div. students, and do ride on sidewalks themselves. This has been ongoing.
As for our pal, Alphonse...
The "radical" bikist (sic) does not ride on the sidewalk. The casual commuter (and the one who should be advocated for) does.

Posted by: Alan Felder | May 19, 2009 11:55 PM

Find a place for our children to ride, and stop criminalizing these kids.

Posted by: JMS | May 20, 2009 2:44 AM

Yeah folks... I think it's pretty safe to assume that Mr. DelValle did not bring his ATV all the way from Harlem just to roll it out of the back of the truck and then spend time detailing it or changing the oil.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | May 20, 2009 7:58 AM

ALAN FELDER

I'm with you. We need a safe place for our kids to ride their stolen dirtbikes.

Posted by: Morris Cove | May 20, 2009 8:27 AM

Threefiths

THE GUY DROVE DOWN FROM HARLEM, WITH THE ATV IN TOW.....What do you think....think....(hint, hint), was his intent?. He even says that he came down to ride in the parade.

Why would you get caught up in samantics, the FACTS, are he came here to ride, and he got caught..case closed!

As far as the insurance goes, I was not refering to the fine that the criminal gets ( who cares ), I was refering to the victims and the out of pocket expenses that they incur, who pays for there medical cost (rhetorical question).

Hey Alen, theses men, are not children, the guy is 32 years old, and drove down from New York, there are several trails he could have rode and been within the law. Stop trying to turn this into the mean cops who pick on innocent little victims, when one of these "kids", slams into you and takes off, and leaves you holding the bill, lets see how quick you'll be to come running to there defense with your liberal garbage.

Posted by: jawbone | May 20, 2009 1:03 PM

Alan Felder,
Who is your comment refering to? Del Valle is 32. He is neither a kid, nor a child.
Do you understand that most of these riders are way above age? They have been terrorizing this city for way too long now. They beat people and scare the citizens back into their homes.

Posted by: MORRIS COVE MF | May 20, 2009 9:49 PM

Wondering who I call when I have ATV/quad issues in my neighborhood? Should I assume it's 911? I have almost been run off of Burr Street while being followed too closely by a pack of 3-4 ATVers.

Posted by: Streever | May 21, 2009 9:42 AM

Alan,
I doubt any of these men in their 30s are your children. I also doubt the violent & vicious kids doing it are your children.

People have found about 8 places now in CT for someone to ride these.

Look, "they need a place to ride" rings a bit hollow. Have you seen what one of these bikes does to the area it's used in? It does a massive amount of environmental damage, and the wide tires are completely unsuitable for street usage.

I'm sorry Alan, but take some responsibility. If you have a kid with a motorbike, instead of letting him risk his life riding it dangerously, why don't YOU take him somewhere to ride it.

What do you expect? A City pickup truck to come around & pick up the kids bikes & bring them to "QUAD HEAVEN"? Or should the track start directly at your garage?

There are legal places to ride quads already in CT. Bring your children there or admit that you're the one at fault. Their is no practical way to build a track that residential neighbors can get to & use without being driven to it--which you can already do at the 8 spots in CT that permit quads.

Posted by: Streever | May 21, 2009 9:44 AM

And Norton Street:
It's actually happening, and some of the ATV riders are posting on message boards offering to beat people up. I don't know how it's paranoid to acknowledge things that have happened.

Posted by: franky | July 2, 2009 7:50 PM

yes these kids are a bit reckless but u have to also see that there has been given NO places for the to ride so i say if some 1 should be attacked it should be the people who sell the bikes i personally own 1 myself and truth be told i pay insurance and registration for my atv so why cant i go out and ride in lands that are not been used? im now 45 and still enjoy going out doors and riding just like others like walking or biking or what ever. the true problem is that people are too sensitive today certain neighbors think they own the neighborhood and they want to control it any way possible (old people who dont know how to enjoy life and live it up they are just watching to see what others are doing ) life is to short enjoy it ps laws are put up for a reason but in this case the laws are u cant ride thats it (is that fare to everyone??) like i said i ride i own property so i dont have much problems but i do have friends i go out with and some times we get tickets and let it be known they will let u ride to give u tickets lol they want ur money lol