Marchers Want Stronger
Civilian Review Of Police

Twenty-one days after officers raided a private party at Elevate, Yale students marched alongside New Haveners concerned with police misconduct from City Hall to 1 Union Ave.

The ​“March Against Police Brutality” Saturday brought together roughly 45 protesters to call for the reform of an issue that they say touches every citizen, regardless of neighborhood, age, or race. The march came after several incidents of alleged police misconduct so far this fall, including multiple cases of officers interfering with bystanders trying to document an arrest. Marchers wanted a response.

Among their demands: an ​“independent” and ​“powerful” Civilian Review Board.

Marco Castillo, one of the leaders of the march and an organizer for Unidad Latina en Acción, shouted the coalition’s demands in the above video. Besides changing the Civilian Review Board, they are: ending police brutality, excessive use of force, racial profiling, and illegal search and seizure; and reaffirming the right to document police conduct without intimidation.

This isn’t the first time that complaints have surfaced about the review board. In 2007, after a scandal with the city’s narcotics unit, a gathering in Dixwell questioned whether the board was powerful enough to be effective. In 2008, New Haven activist Emma Jones testified to ask for the board to receive subpoena power. Both times, they were unsuccessful, and in the years since, the board has struggled even to fill all of its seats.

If Steven Winter and other members of the newly-formed group Citizens for Policing Reform, one of the major organizations behind Saturday’s march, have anything to say about it, that’s about to change. ​“I think if you look at the way the board has been run, [the city has] not committed a full-time director to this board … It’s hard to get citizens invested when the city has shown a lack of willingness to invest in its citizens’ review board,” Winter (pictured above with megaphone) said.

They and other marchers said the board should have the power to investigate and discipline an officer instead of being limited to making recommendations. Beyond that, they also want to take away police officials’ ability to appoint members of the board. ​“We want [a board] that has the power to hold officers accountable,” Winter added.

Will they have more success now than activists before them?

That may depend in part on whether a town-gown coalition stays together. At Saturday’s march students like LaTisha Campbell and Kayla Vinson, both from Yale, mingled with longtime activist Barbara Fair from My Brother’s Keeper and Mark ​“Big Tone” Maloney.

“I don’t think that you can separate Yale and New Haven,” said Vinson of her motivation for attending the march and calling for citywide reform.

“We’re all part of this community and we have a responsibility to protect it.” Campbell agreed, ​“To feel the reality of many people’s lives is not to say, ​‘Oh, it shouldn’t happen to us,’ but to say, ​‘It shouldn’t happen to anyone.’”

“Because of what happens to Yale students, it leads to a broader discussion. I think we have shown enough power and pressure that it’s obvious that something will happen in the near future,” Castillo said.

For their part, the police say that they are listening. Officers helped to guide the protesters throughout the afternoon and stood by during the speeches, a role for which Fair thanked them. She said as she walked by one of the patrol cars, “[Police brutality] is a huge problem but not widespread. Overall the officers are great but the few [cause] a lot of distrust in the community because of their actions.” Several other demonstrators emphasized that the march was against police brutality, not the police themselves.

Lt. Petisia Adger (pictured, left) watched the march from her position a few feet away. She said that she wanted to hear what citizens had to say both in her position on the police force and as a private citizen who has lived in New Haven for her entire life. ​“The fact is that we need the community to do our work,” she said. ​“If people are feeling this way, we’ve got to know that because we’ve got to fix that.”

Chief Frank Limon, too, has been open to meeting with citizens, both Adger and demonstrators said. Adger spoke about a tour of local libraries that he will make starting in November to talk to the community, while Fair already had a meeting set up with him for this coming week.

“They have the right to voice their opinion and we have to listen,” Adger concluded. “[We] may not agree, but it can only help us.”

Citizens for Policing Reform is hosting a meeting Monday at 7p.m. at the New Haven Peoples Center at 37 Howe St.