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“I’m Tired Of Being Scared”

by Melinda Tuhus | Aug 30, 2007 6:25 pm

(1) Comment | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Legal Writes

corey.JPGA famous minister from New York and a sixth-grader from New Haven (pictured; click here to hear him go) had unsettling words for feds and police chiefs gathered at City Hall to assess what clergy and cops can do to fight crime.

They took part in a high-profile community conversation Wednesday among cops, clergy, community activists and children. The conversation revealed some sharp differences, but mostly agreement on what needs to happen to make New Haven and all of Connecticut a true haven for its residents.

It was called “A Meeting of the Minds” and it brought together many members of the clergy from around Connecticut as well as the chiefs of police in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford (and the Deputy Chief of Waterbury). The session — which lasted several hours — was held in City Hall’s aldermanic chambers on Thursday.

Before that dialogue began, two youngsters read their essays about violence.

blake.JPGBlake Spears (pictured), a freshman at Co-op High School, read a speech that was several pages long (and that she later said she had dashed off in one inspired sitting at the computer). Part poetry, part call to action, she described what it’s like to live “in the ghetto, or the ‘hood, or whatever you want to call it” and feel abandoned by the police, whose job it should be to protect everyone. Click here to listen.

Then Corey Moore (pictured at the top of this story), a sixth- grader at Hooker School, took the podium. Barely able to see over it, he spoke in a strong, clear voice. He addressed the gang-bangers and would-be gang-bangers in his community and told them their actions don’t make them tough guys, but more often lonely guys or imprisoned guys. Click here to listen.

The four police officials emphasized the need to build trust and show accountability. Ortiz credited the community with taking a more active role in New Haven in the past several months. “The ‘community’ in ‘community policing’ is just as important as the ‘police,’” he said.

Pastor Todd Foster of Church on the Rock in New Haven said he could offer “people, places and vision,” i.e., not just himself, but teachers, counselors an mentors from his congregation; a safe place for kids to come, and the vision “of a better future than what our young people see every day.”

rabbi.JPGWhen it was his turn to speak, Rabbi Eliezer Greer (pictured), founder of the armed civilian patrol in the Edgewood neighborhood, made a point of praising the rank and file police officers in New Haven, and criticizing the leadership for not being accountable. Click here to listen.

pedro.JPGA little later, Pedro Delgado, who identified himself “as a victim and a perpetrator” of violence, and an ex-con who now works with people struggling with substance abuse, said what’s needed is a “reaction, not an over-reaction,” by cops and clergy to the violence in his community. Click here for more. He also clearly differed with Greer on the value of an armed citizens’ patrol. “I definitely don’t want armed civilians patrolling my streets,” he said. “I got enough to worry about from other people with guns out there.”

butts.JPGKeynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts (pictured), pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury. He is perhaps best known for his successful campaign attacking cigarette and alcohol advertising on billboards in Harlem.To appreciative calls to “preach it,” Butts advocated “restorative justice” to right the wrongs in our society, a form of justice that has forgiveness at its heart. He criticized the racism that has created a drug- and violence-fueled prison population that is disproportionately African American, when they are not the ones buying or selling most of the drugs. He also suggested it was time to look at legalizing drugs to take the profit motive out of the street drug business.

Butts also addressed the problem of not “snitching” in communities where violence occurs. He said it’s dangerous to those very communities, but he said he understands where it comes from:- Click here to listen. (Hint: think of the “blue wall of silence.”)

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posted by: bfair on September 1, 2007  9:06am

I wish I had known about this event before instead of after it occurred. I would have loved to have been there. From what I’ve read the children, Pastor Todd and the guest speaker are the ones who have a clue about real interventions to the violence in our community. Restorative justice is the key to addressing our youth not constant harrassment and multitude arrests. Real community policing is when THOSE WHO ARE INVESTED IN OUR COMMUNITY take on policing that goes beyond cursing, belittling, macing, threatening and handcuffing someone and carting them off to jail. The so called drug war is a sytematic means of keeping a constant flow of prisoners (disproportionately people of color) into the largest industry in Amerikkka; the prison industry. It has nothing to do with ending the drug crisis. Until people in this country stop turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to that fact and the fact that individuals outside urban centers are providing the flow of guns into our communities the violence will contniue to be a crisis among us.

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