nothin Dixwell’s New Top Cop Is New Haven Made | New Haven Independent

Dixwell’s New Top Cop Is New Haven Made

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Hoyte checks in on Stetson.

Sgt. Jacqueline Jackie” Hoyte is no stranger to Dixwell Avenue.

As I kid, I hung out on Dixwell Avenue,” she said with a chuckle. I went to all the Freddy Fixer parades and things like that. I smoked my first cigarette on the steps of the Dixwell Q House. I don’t smoke anymore, but I did all of those fun things. I got to enjoy the Q House and I am so glad that they’re going to be rebuilding it. It’s going to be great.”

As the new district manager for the Dixwell neighborhood, Hoyte, who is 52 and has been a cop for 16 years, not only is no stranger to Dixwell she’s no stranger to its adjacent neighborhoods, Beaver Hills and Newhallville. She grew up in both neighborhoods, and in fact, it was her time living in Beaver Hills, particularly on Carmel Street that influenced her decision to become a police officer. Lt. Sam Brown, the former district manager for Dixwell, is now the deputy patrol commander for the department.

It was the 1980s, and Hoyte was working a desk job as a patient administrator at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She recalled that the drug dealing and other crimes had gotten so bad that it was almost impossible to get home.

The police department’s solution? Drop down on the dealers in vans. Beat the criminals, and some non-criminals, up and haul them off to jail. She was happy to have the cops intervene, but was not pleased with the abuse that accompanied arrests by the department’s so-called Beat-Down Posse.”

By the late 1990s, she had applied to become a cop herself, and was admitted to the training academy.

I joined the police department because I didn’t like the way they were policing my community and treating the people in my community,” she said.

As Hoyte likes to put it, she’s a true New Havener. Educated in the public school system, she is a proud alumna of Ivy Street School, Maruo-Sheridan and Hillhouse High School. She has lived in the city all her life, currently residing at Crawford Manor and serving as the liaison for a program that encourages police officers to live in public housing.

She said she didn’t know that when she set out to become a police officer in her city that she was embarking on community policing,” which then-Chief Nicholas Pastore introduced in 1990.

I wanted to make a difference and make a change and police the community differently,” she said. Little did I know it was called community policing. I didn’t know to put that term to it.”

She initially walked a beat downtown in the Wooster Square neighborhood. She has worked the majority of her 16 years — 13 of those years to be exact — in the place where it all started, Beaver Hills. After spending a couple of years at the police academy and a year in records working with the first black woman to make captain in department history, Patricia Helliger, Hoyte was tapped for the Dixwell job.

I’m doing exactly what I always wanted and my purpose for coming on to this job,” she said of being back in a neighborhood and working closely with residents. I’m getting to do it now as the new district manager. I always did it as an officer, but this is really where the passion is and I feel it makes a bigger difference.”

Paul Bass Photo

Hoyte at the Freddy.

During the recent Freddy Fixer Parade weekend, Hoyte stopped by a health and wellness block party held at Stetson Branch Library to shake hands and introduce herself to the many people who attended the event. She said in just three weeks on the job as district manger she is impressed by Dixwell neighbors and their commitment to their neighborhood. She said she’s looking forward to building relationships and partnering with the community.

I’m just blown away with the Dixwell community,” she said singling out Stetson Branch Manger Diane Brown. I mean I always grew up around Dixwell and I knew people, but I’m really having a new experience. They’re phenomenal people. They’ve got great things going on and I’m just honored to be a part of that — that I get to work in partnership with them. That’s what community policing is all about.”

Hoyte said it wasn’t easy coming into the department as a black woman, and she had to battle both sexism and racism at times. But she also got to be part of helping the department become more culturally sensitive and aware, and that work has had an impact, she said.

In the beginning years it was tough,” she said. You had to get through the challenges of proving yourself and then being accepted. As you know, law enforcement is a predominately male field, so I had to prove myself, that I could do the job. Then I had to fight through the racism. There was lot of that and it was a very challenging area at that time, but we’ve grown since that time. I must say that the police department has come up, and we’re really doing it right now.”

It also didn’t hurt that Hoyte determined to stay even though much of her family, including her mother have moved away.

When I joined the police department, that was a shift and change of how I really wanted to give back to my community and make a change in my community,” she said. When everyone else was moving, I was in the middle of my career. And I was like, I’m not leaving. I’ve got to fulfill my destiny.’ I just feel like it was destined for me to become even district manager.

I’m here and I’m a New Havener,” she added proudly. I live in this city and I love this city.”

When she’s not attending events in Dixwell and learning the neighborhood and its concerns, she’s active in her church, Christian Love Center Church. She also is active with the residents of Crawford Manor.

If all that didn’t keep her busy enough, Hoyte runs a not-for-profit organization aimed at helping women who have recently been divorced called SistaHood Life Support Services. After enduring her own divorce four years ago, she decided she wanted to provide services for women who are experiencing the emotional, spiritual and financial impact of divorce.

Divorce is hard,” she said. It hurts financially. At the time of my divorce … there just weren’t any supports, just no place that helped.” All of these things, with a lot of help from her officers in Dixwell, many of whom are veteran cops who know the area well, help keep her firmly planted in New Haven.

I really love my community,” she said. I really do. It’s a great time in my life, and it is the best move I could have made. This has been the greatest opportunity that PD could have given me.”

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