nothin Cops & ICE Focus Of Black & Hispanic Caucus… | New Haven Independent

Cops & ICE Focus Of Black & Hispanic Caucus Address

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Jose Crespo and Darryl Brackeen: two sides of the public safety coin.

From the lectern, Upper Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen Jr. recalled the time a New Haven police officer grabbed him and yelled at him about riding a red mountain bike.

The incident happened on the street he grew up on, Ray Road. In the same neighborhood he now represents. It happened in front of his childhood home, in front of his two sisters and their neighbors. The bike was his. It even had his name on it. Brackeen was a teenager at the time; he has never forgotten it.

Brackeen recalled that anecdote Wednesday night as part of his remarks during the Black and Hispanic Caucus’s annual State of the City address at City Hall. He said that experience of racial profiling changed how he saw the police. Brackeen, Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo, and City Point Alder Dolores Colon shared the duties of delivering the address.

I never thought I would be a statistic for simply riding my bike while being black,” Brackeen said. said. It was at that moment that I realized that I was a victim of racial profiling. It was then that I realized that no matter that I was a smart decent kid from a middle class neighborhood I too was a target for racial profiling. It was at that moment that I questioned the policing practices of our city.”

Brackeen said the city has made progress by bringing walking beats back to the city. But as evidenced by a recent public hearing on the establishment of a civilian review board, the police haven’t completely won the confidence of the community.

There is a real concern about police violence,” he said. Their concerns are real; their losses are real. We hear each and every one of your stories. We hear your pain”

He said the city needs to put in place that civilian review board, as directed by a 2013 charter revision vote.He also praised the steps that have been taken so far to secure and fund body cameras as a necessary part of reestablishing that trust and encouraging transparency.

It’s going to take work to rebuild confidence in our system,” he said. If community policing is going to live up to its reputation and potential, we need to build more trust between both sides and hold each other to the highest standards of accountability as well as expanding those elements that work best like walking beats.”

The issue of public safety dominated the address with Fair Haven Alder Crespo talking about the importance of the city’s status as a sanctuary city” and how it has, and continues, to live up to that designation for immigrants in the city regardless of their status.

He praised the Board of Education’s plan for establishing a policy that would not allow the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to come into schools without a warrant, and for creating caregiver plans for children who are undocumented, or have undocumented parents that might be detained while the children are at school. Crespo praised the city for creating family immigration guide to help people understand their rights and know what resources are available.

He said a sanctuary city is a place of refuge and safety, and that means looking out for the people who live here, including those who are facing raids and deportation.

Whatever your background, you race our your gender, we are a city that strives to work as one,” he said. There’s currently a resident who is facing deportation even though his wife of nine years and his child are American citizens. We cannot allow that to happen. We have an obligation to assist those who are being marginalized.”

Dolores Colon: Too many residents live in fear.

Hill Alder Colon, chair of the Black and Hispanic Caucus, highlighted the good that has been accomplished in the city — graduation rates are up, for the third year in a row a budget was passed with no mill rate increase, and New Haven Works, which the caucus pushed to help establish, has in five years helped 1,000 people find work.

Access to jobs is a key priority of the caucus and the whole board, and remains the top priority of residents according the Board of Alders recently released legislative agenda survey results, Colon said. She also patted the caucus and the community on the back for raising money for teens, senior citizens and the homeless.

Colon praised Yale University for its commitment to hire 1,000 people from New Haven, at least half of which will come from the city’s neighborhood of need.” But she chastised the city’s other large employers like Yale-New Haven Hospital, who have yet to make a similar commitment. She, like her fellow alders, touched on the issue of safety and crime, praising the city’s drop in crime, while acknowledging that many residents still live in fear.

Too many of our residents live in fear,” she said. They fear the ICE raid in the middle of the night. They fear the traffic stop gone wrong, the stray bullet.”

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