nothin Public — Mostly — Barred From Compstat | New Haven Independent

Public — Mostly — Barred From Compstat

File Photo

The Rev. Boise Kimber let the front-desk sergeant at police headquarters Thursday know he needed to be buzzed in.

I’m here for Compstat,” Kimber (pictured in file photo) said, referring to the weekly data-sharing meeting on the fourth floor that has become a hallmark of New Haven’s community-policing program. The meeting had started 15 minutes earlier.

The sergeant pressed a button for the intercom.

The Compstat meeting has been closed to the public,” he informed the politically influential Newhallville reverend.

I’m Rev. Kimber,” Kimber said.

The meeting is closed to the public,” the officer repeated as other barred members of the public looked on.

Kimber looked baffled. Instead of joining the handful of people who had been informed prior to the start of the 10 a.m. meeting that it would be closed to the public, Kimber made a phone call.

This is Kimber,” he said. I’m here.”

A few minutes later, a different officer came downstairs to escort Kimber upstairs to the meeting.

The rest of the public wasn’t as lucky as Kimber Thursday. For the first time in over three years, police officials kicked members of the community out of the Compstat meeting after a second consecutive week of confrontation with outspoken activist, Barbara Fair.

Police Chief Dean Esserman invited the public — neighborhood activists, ministers, elected officials, public-health workers, among others — into Compstat as a way of building bridges with the citizens, a hallmark of community policing. The room fills with as many as 70 people, who hear about neighborhood-by-neighborhood crimes and the department’s efforts to address them, and offer input. Thursday’s closure was the latest fallout of the recent incident involving a video-recorded arrest of a 15-year-old girl and the department’s response.

I thought the meeting was closed to the public,” Barbara Fair said to the officer escorting Kimber upstairs Thursday. Isn’t he the public too?”

The officer escorting Kimber said she was instructed to let the pastor up, but no one else.

Fair had attended last week’s Compstat, too. She spoke up about insults she said were made against activists at a March 27 rally at City Hall . (The police union called the rally, pictured in video, to protest the mayor’s decision to ask the chief to place on desk duty an officer pending conclusion of an internal investigation of his handling of the arrest of the 15-year-old girl.) Officers responded that they had investigated those insults and learned that they came from demonstrators who were not cops; they also noted that Fair’s group of protesters insulted police.

When Fair returned for this Thursday’s meeting, Chief Esserman asked her to leave because his command staff had informed him that she had disrupted the previous week’s meeting. (Esserman had not been present the week before.) Fair said she was not disruptive and refused to leave unless the rest of the public had to leave, too. Esserman then closed the meeting, ordering out anyone who was not law enforcement.

He said later that future meetings will remain open to the public unless Fair returns.

The incident put the public Compstat concept to a test: New Haven is unlike other departments in trusting the public and press to attend these discussions of pending cases. How much of the public can be brought in while maintaining the purpose? Many people, including police critics, have attended. But Fair is the city’s most outspoken critic of the police department. Her presence changed the equation, according to officers present, who view the meetings as intended to get work done as opposed to conducting public debates. To Fair, her presence tested the department’s ability to accept criticism.

I’m Closing This Meeting”

Fair’s daughter, Holly Tucker, recorded this video of Esserman and Fair discussing the closure of the meeting before she left the room. Including this excerpt:

Esserman: Unfortunately you were not proper here. This is a serious meeting we’re having about a homicide. And I’m asking you to please leave with me … I’ll meet with you now downstairs.

Fair: I have a right to be at the meeting. It’s a public meeting.

Fair: Unless I’m under arrest, I will keep sitting here.

Esserman: Barbara, I’m asking you to please leave.

Fair: I’m asking you to please leave me alone. I’m at a public meeting.

Esserman: No Barbara, you’re at a police department meeting in a police department meeting.

Fair: A city building.

Esserman: I’m not going to let you stay. I’m going to cancel it. I’m going to close the meeting to discuss the homicide, which is more important.

After more back and forth, Esserman declared: All right. I’m closing this meeting to the public unfortunately today. So all government officials can stay. The public’s going to have to leave.”

You are so ridiculous,” Holly Tucker retorted.

A Time And A Place”

Markeshia Ricks Photo

He closed the meeting to prevent me from speaking out,” said Fair (pictured outside police headquarters afterwards). And he talks about community policing, but you can’t say anything except what he wants to hear.”

She likened the chief’s decision to close Thursday’s meeting to his threat to shut down a Yale football game when an usher asked for his ticket.

He’s a big bully,” she said. He’s using the same tactics he used at Yale Bowl.”

There’s a time and place to have frank conversations. I’m always available to meet with people. In fact, I had tea with them last week,” Esserman responded. People have access to me easily.”

This is not the time or the place” for those debates, he said. We’re doing serious work in that meeting. For someone to show up who has never shown up in the three years that we’ve had that meeting to be disruptive, is not the place.”

Esserman said Kimber was allowed into the meeting because he was an invited speaker making a presentation.

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