Aliyya Swaby Photo
Nivia & Veronica Jimenez were each attacked in the past month.
Alberto Serrano (pictured) took a blow to the head from a guy with a bat, presumably as a target of a hate crime. Prisciliano Rodriguez was held up at gunpoint returning home from the grocery store with no patrol cops around. Juana Islas’ son was attacked by two people on bicycles and, Islas said, the police took a half hour to arrive.
Veronica Jimenez’ 5‑year-old son was attacked by a dog. She called a 911 operator who did not speak Spanish, so she couldn’t immediately report the incident..
New Haven immigrants told personal stories like those in English and Spanish about their experiences with unchecked violence and lack of police presence in their communities, at a press conference held Thursday evening by advocacy group Unidad Latina en Accion.
They called on the city and police to work harder to create trust within immigrant communities, so people will report attacks more often, and actually receive protection.
The issue has been brewing for years in neighborhoods like Fair Haven, a majority Latino neighborhood with a large immigrant community. Two years ago, 250 people called a meeting at St. Rose of Lima Church to implore that Police Chief Dean Esserman increase police presence and install better-trained 911 operators.
Problems persist, according to those who spoke out Thursday. They said the lack of protection leaves their communities open to continued violence.
Islas (pictured) teared up as she told the story about her son’s recent attack. Her family has had other experience with crime in town: Eight years ago, her brother-in-law Manuel Santiago was stabbed to death by a robber in Fair Haven. That murder spurred the city to launch the widely lauded Elm City Resident Card program, providing undocumented immigrants with legal means of identification to interact with police and open bank accounts. The program lost outside funding two years later, and was then tucked into the Office of Vital Statistics.
Instead of a separate office of bilingual staffers to help immigrants sign up for the cards, existing employees in that office handle the registration. Often they do not speak Spanish at all and cannot effectively communicate with many immigrants, said John Lugo (pictured), of Unidad Latina. His group called for City Hall to reinvigorate the program. Asked Thursday night about that, Mayor Toni Harp said the group hadn’t brought the issue to her attention. But she said she has already formed a working group — including her community-services chief Martha Okafor, transit chief Doug Hausladen, policy advisor Mendi Blue, and cultural affairs chief Andy Wolf — to explore ways to strengthen the program. Among other ideas, the group has begun speaking with banks about creating accounts that can be linked to the ID cards for immigrants. “Get[ing] bank cards to the unbanked,” as Harp put it, would help immigrants not carry around as much cash and thus be less likely targets of street crime.
Around the same time as launching the ID program, the city created a police order that protected immigrants from being detained by immigration authorities if they reported crimes to the cops.
Lugo said many immigrants, especially those new to the city, are not aware of this order, likely meaning that many more attacks on individuals happen than are reported. He said he wants to organize a meeting for police to educate affected communities on their legal rights and “create a line of trust” between the two.
The New Haven Police Department does reach out to these immigrant groups through community organizations and religious groups, as well as directed outreach programs, said Assistant Chief Archie Generoso. Though he was not aware of the details of specific incidents of violence mentioned at the press conference, he said he was concerned that immigrants do not feel comfortable reporting crimes.
“If we’re not getting the word out, we want to do that,” he said. “It is our job to let anybody know that they can come to us without fear of reprisal.”
For some, faith in police response is dropping, speakers said Thursday night. Attackers “know police won’t do anything,” said Jimenez, who last month called the cops on a man whose giant dog was attacking her 5‑year-old son on a street in Fair Haven. He refused to call the dog off, she said. Her child was not badly harmed, but she worried the situation would escalate.
She called at 7 p.m. The dispatcher told her there was no one who could speak with her in Spanish. Jimenez’ husband called and spoke to the police in English, but no one came. When he finally got someone to agree to take their report, it was 2 a.m. By that time, they had escaped and had been home for hours.
Both Serrano and Rodriguez were attacked near Kimberly Avenue in the Hill neighborhood. In July, Serrano (pictured) was clubbed in the head after trying to protect his friend from attackers’ blows. He woke up two days later in Yale-New Haven Hospital with 17 stitches in his head. Now he owes almost $4,000 in hospital bills and lacks insurance so cannot continue necessary treatment or medicine.
His attack had no perceived motive: nothing was taken from him.
“Será que creen que somos menos?” Serrano asked. “Could it be they think we are lesser?”
Rodriguez’ attackers held a gun to his head one block from his house, as he returned from grocery shopping at C‑Town. They told him they would shoot if he called for help. They took everything he had, including $60 in cash on his person. He said he watched as people in passing cars saw the incident and kept driving. Finally, his sister-in-law arrived at the scene and the men scattered, fleeing in a car. The police later found and apprehended them and the court process is pending.
“Cada día hay mas asaltos,” he said. “Every day there are more assaults.”
Twenty days ago, an immigrant couple was also attacked on Kimberly Avenue in the late afternoon, Serrano said. “Immigrants are the ones being targeted,” he said.
