Markeshia Ricks Photo
Boyd with Farwell at the announcement.
Activists who marched on City Hall to protest the police — or to protest the protesters — returned to the scene. This time, the mayor invited them.
Their role: to serve on a new mayoral task force to help New Haven “kick” community policing “up a notch.”
The 24-member task force includes:
• Ann Boyd, a longtime Hill activist and the grandmother of a handcuffed teenager whom a police officer slammed to the ground.
• Barbara Fair, a longtime police critics who recently led marches on the police department and City Hall.
• Edgewood activist Eli Greer, who joined police union members who crashed a mayoral press conference to protest (in video) when the aforementioned officer was placed on desk duty. These are just a few of the faces of a new task force on policing.
They and some of the police department’s other critics, as well as some of its biggest supporters, joined Mayor Toni Harp at City Hall Wednesday for the announcement of their new group, called the Community and Police Relations Task Force at City Hall.
Harp said though New Haven has received state and national recognition for community policing, the task force will be responsible for “kicking it up a notch.”
The task force is charged with finding ways to improve community based policing by evaluating and making recommendations about, for instance, the structure, boundaries, membership and oversight of the department’s district management team structure.
The task force also will review and make recommendations on the department’s protocol on use of force and design a “recourse mechanism” when force is deemed “unnecessary, inappropriate and unreasonable.”
Harp tapped Greer and former longtime Roberto Clemente Academy Principal Leroy Williams to co-chair the task force. Greer (pictured) characterized the task force as performing a function that is “the left foot” to “the right foot” (i.e. the police). He said the task force would be a voice for the perspectives of residents, but also insure that “proper respect is given to police officers.”
With the guidance of longtime Hill activist Boyd and Greater New Haven NAACP President Dorie Dumas, Harp said, she tried to appoint people not from every ward, but from the largest neighborhoods in the city. She said she sought racial and ethnic diversity, and people who “had been activists around policing issues.”
The task force announcement follows a period in which the national outrage over police violence sparked similar, though smaller-scale, public questioning of police tactics after a viral video captured the officer slamming the handcuffed 15-year-old girl to the ground. Boyd, the girl’s grandmother, said that she’s been talking about having such a group convened for several years. She said she was pleased that Harp took up the charge.
“This is long overdue,” she said.
Hill activist and businessman Miguel Pittman (pictured), who questioned the police at a weekly Compstat meeting about the parade incident, is another task force member. He said he jumped at the chance to participate in the task force. “I’m excited to be engaged at a higher level,” he said. “My only concern is whether the task force will be in position to have enough teeth to tackle some of the issues we may face.
“Time will tell, but this is an excellent start,” he said.
Harp said the members of the task force will put together a report that they will submit to her and the Board of Police Commissioners, likely in December.
Police Chief Dean Esserman, who will serve as an ex officio member of the task force, said that the police department welcomes the scrutiny and opportunity to improve.
The task force’s members are: Leroy Williams (chair); Eli Greer (chair); Ann Boyd, Dorie Dumas, Anstress Farwell; Donald Morris; Miguel Pittman; Randi Rodriguez; Peter Webster; Donald Walker; Emma Jones; Jhonathan Rivera; Gerald Garcia; James Newman; Barbara Fair; Father James Manship; Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins; Sandra Trevino; Lee Cruz; Amos Smith and Evelyn Rodriguez. Ex officio members: New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman; Lt. Otoniel Reyes; Quintin McArthur; police Detective Lucille Roach; Livable City Initiative Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo; Board of Police Commissioners Chairman Anthony Dawson; and Officer Shafiq Abdussabur.
This group has enormous potential.
I hope they will look at the statistics as to how many people have died from tasers, not just guns.
People have died unjustly and this group has the opportunity to lead the way to humane, non-violent responses. Force should be limited to the last option, except in the most dangerous circumstances.
I don't want to see that SWAT vehicle that was exhibited at the Cherry Blossom Festival out in our neighborhoods. That is a military vehicle. This is not a war here.
Or is it?