Paul Bass Photos
Top Newhallville cop Lt. Herb Sharp.
Chapman: This “flies in the face of community policing.”
Cops in Newhallville started pulling over more drivers for running lights or missing plates. Then the shootings stopped.
Nobody believes that ending street violence is that simple.
But Lt. Herb Sharp, Newhallville’s top cop, does seem some connection between those two facts.
Those facts describe the past three weeks in Newhallville. On March 24 two people were shot on Butler Street; one, 17-year-old Taijhon Washington, died from his wounds. (Police Thursday charged an 18-year-old New Haven man with committing that murder.) Shortly before that incident, two people were shot, non-fatally, in drive-bys on Lilac Street and Newhall Street.
In response, the police beefed up coverage in Sharp’s district, adding overtime beats to his regular walking and driving patrols. Sharp gave all those cops a directive: Stop cars on the main arteries — Bassett Street, Winchester Avenue, Dixwell and Shelton — for as many motor vehicle violations as possible. Running red lights. Running stop cars. Failing to have two plates on the car. Speeding.
Sharp’s thinking: “These perpetrators are bringing weapons in by car. They have to get in somewhere” to reach side streets where the shootings are occurring.
Sharp directed his cops to go lighter on people who live in the neighborhood: Explain to them why they’re getting stopped more. Issue them warnings instead of tickets when possible.
“We don’t want them to be victimized twice,” Sharp said. He reported Thursday that while many neighbors have initially reacted in frustration upon being stopped, they have supported the mission upon receiving the explanation.
He also reported some statistics for the period since Washington’s murder through this Monday. In that time Newhallvile has seen:
• 90 tickets for motor-vehicle violations like running stop signs.
• 2 tickets for missing parking tags.
• 9 summonses for misdemeanors like driving with a suspended license.
• 10 custodial arrests for more serious crimes like having an outstanding warrant.
• 44 written warnings.
• 11 verbal warnings.
And …
• 0 shootings.
Now, shootings come in waves. Multiple factors lead to them occurring or not occurring. Sharp doesn’t claim that he has magically solved the violent crime problem in Newhallville.
He does take hope from the initial results of the previous three weeks. Since December, when Sharp took over the district (which includes Newhallville and East Rock), shootings have dropped there, as has other crime. He has worked hard, he said, on “building community partnerships” in the district.
For much of Sharp’s new tenure frigid temperatures may have kept the gangbangers inside. But the past three weeks have seen stretches of warmer temperatures, with more people outside — and no spike in Newhallville violence.
Sharp’s supervisor, Lt. Jeff Hoffman, said he believes the traffic stops are a factor, among several, in the three-week shooting hiatus in Newhallville.
“It’s fairly accepted in policing that increased highly visible motor vehicles stops at night when you see the lights flashing all over the place are a deterrent to crime,” Hoffman said. “It gives the appearance of omnipresence.”
Newhallville Alderwoman Brenda Foskey-Cyrus said Sharp’s approach “appears to be working.”
Some five to 10 constituents have called her to complain about the stops, she said. “The neighbors feel they’re just pulling over a lot of Afro-Americans in the community. I’m trying to stress to them the reason for the pull-over. [Police are] trying to make sure they don’t bring guns in the community.”
“Ninety-five percent of our residents are African-American” in Newhallville, Sharp noted.
One community organizer in Newhallville, homeowner Tammy Chapman (pictured during a neighborhood beautification effort), was far more critical of the stops. She called the campaign the antithesis of community policing — because rather than relying on building trust with neighbors to get information on what happens on side streets, it creates a hostile police “omnipresence.”
“People are upset about it,” Chapman said.
“Speed control and calming, we’re all for those things. But let’s not use them in excess. And let’s not use them as an excuse for what appears to a majority of African-American residents to be harassment. To me it flies in the face of the theory of community policing.” She expressed skepticism that the stops will produce many guns; the guns, she said, are already in the community.
Chapman described an incident she witnessed at dusk right outside her home on Sunday. She saw six cops pull over a car and then arrest the driver. Meanwhile, she saw a young man ride his bike down Highland Street then turn right onto Winchester. She said three police cars blocked the usual space for bikes. As he tried to maneuver around the cops, she said, ” “I literally saw one of the police officers take him by the collar and lift him by the collar and take him off the bike.” She said understands that in the midst of an investigation, “your instincts would kick in and not your logic.” But she said the incident reflected the concerns of neighbors like her about the effect of the police response. She complained to Lt. Sharp, who told her the officer had a different version of the incident.
Well, well, well. This is something citizens have been requesting for literally years. Routine traffic stops = safer citizens!