5,000 March For Racial Justice

It was really inspiring to see our community come together in support of BLM and its agenda for substantive change.

Great march. It was nice to see how little police presence there was along the route - just a couple blocking auto traffic.

If you peacefully protest you're not going to have any issues...it's really that simple. Another excellent protest so far...stay off the highways, stick to city streets to have your voices heard....

Reform won't work. Dismantle paramilitary policing.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/buffalo-police-emergency-response-team-resign_n_5eda99e1c5b6ba25316d970a

Wait a minute — are the police bad, or are they actually good now? It was also interesting to see the Boy Mayor protesting himself — the internal dialogue there must be fascinating.

The strategy used by the police during these marches apparently has been to allow people to exercise their 1st Amendment rights with minimal visible police presence to avoid conflicts & confrontations with protesters, especially those protesters whose goals were to incite violent confrontations with police.
For that, the New Haven Police Department, the Police Chief and the Mayor are to be commended.
They helped to prevent New Haven erupting in widespread violence, physical injuries & destruction of property. It appears that there have been no arrests in any of New Haven's protest demonstrations.
Most of the protest organizers & peaceful participants of all the rallies should also be commended for keeping focused on the issues of concern to most of us, & not engaging in tactics of violent confrontation with police officers to try to get their message across.
Most residents agree that reforms are needed in our police department. There is, however, a divide over whether police departments should even exist, or whether they should be defunded to a level of incapability to protect the public, & whether major reforms should be instituted for police departments, police training and police policies.
To the neo-abolitionists who want to shut down police departments, and replace them with counselors and social workers to keep the peace, do they really think that is realistic or feasible?
Let's try out their little plan for one day.
One day next week, let's have every single police officer stay home & not to report to work for 24 hours. Let's put this to the test & see how it works. 24 hours in this city with no law enforcement!
The consequences would be disasterous. The city would be reduced to chaos. There would be an immediate spike in lawlessness, crime, violence.
Recently, in a case of domestic violence, a man with a gun held a woman he knew against her will. What would have happened to this woman if the New Haven Police were not around to come to her assistance?

@Tom Paine- i think a whole month would be better.

I think everyone should share their vision of how to dismantle the police department and how everything will be responded to without it.

Example: yesterday's hostage situation. With the paramilitary police structure gone, how will society end said situation?

For a 9 year old whose shot, how will society handle this.

If we're gonna dream big, lets also demonstrate how we're gonna achieve these goals.

I would also commend the protesters for keeping everything peaceful while they marched. I definitely saw some weapons in the crowd, but New Haven let them know their violence was not welcome!

@Thomas Alfred Paine

You said yourself that by making themselves scarce during protests, the police prevented conflict and destruction. But suddenly if they make themselves scare on any other day it's pandemonium?

Police only have one tool, and it's a hammer. There might be a good case to be made that sometimes a hammer is what's needed — but we'd be better off as a society if we stopped pretending that every problem is a nail.

TAP wrote:
<blockquote>Let's try out their little plan for one day.
One day next week, let's have every single police officer stay home & not to report to work for 24 hours. Let's put this to the test & see how it works. 24 hours in this city with no law enforcement!
The consequences would be disasterous. The city would be reduced to chaos. There would be an immediate spike in lawlessness, crime, violence.</blockquote>

This is not really any serious person's "plan." The good news is that you can easily do some reading to get an idea of what the call to 'defund the police' really means. Let me give you one to start: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670/how-much-do-we-need-the-police

I'm thankful for the peaceful protests. This fine city has had more than it's share of violence over the years. My personal opinion is that nobody should have to protest to receive fair and respectable treatment from their police department. That is a sign that policing as an institution in this country has been deteriorating for years to the point of failure. As officers, we have to acknowledge this fact if we want to positively improve police culture. We should also acknowledge that the NHPD has been doing a pretty good job. They are ahead of the curve on many issues making them a different breed of officer and they should be recognized for their progress. However, the history of policing in New Haven has robbed the identity of the current NHPD and the officers now have to diligently create their own identity grounded in diversity, mutual trust and inclusion. Defunding the police is not the answer, nor is doing away with necessary units. The answer lies in effective communication. There is a Police Chief willing to listen, so speak. Set forth solutions, we already know the problems. Stay safe and stay peaceful...

It makes me so encouraged to see thousands of young people in the vanguard of the revolution! With that said, I hope and I would encourage young folks to kick it up a notch and get involved in the progressive electoral revolution. By this I mean run for office, I have always said its time for Dinosaur DeLauro to retire. Challenge her please! Young people want to challenge the status quo, well no better place to start than a campaign in the 3rd District. You are our hope to stop the Military Industrial Complex, US Imperialism abroad, and the Violence and Racism at home. Enough of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan. Dinosaur DeLauro is an ally of the defense industry in Connecticut.

In case you are not so inclined to be a candidate for office, develop your fundraising or organizing skills and help a progressive/left candidate locally or in the region or nationally and AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar will certainly need your help in terms of the 2020 election.May I suggest a new candidate who has emerged on the scene Jamaal Bowman running for Congress in the 16th District of New York. https://www.bowmanforcongress.com/. He is as we say in Yiddish, a "Super-Mensch"! His primary is on June 23.

Lets us honor and carry on the progressive traditions of remarkable women and men who served in Congress and are no longer with us:Vito Marcantonio, Bella Abzug, Henry Gonzalez, Mickey Leland, Paul Wellstone, George Crockett, Ron Dellums, John Conyers, Shirley Chisholm, Theodore Weiss, Major Owens, Thaddeus Stevens (and please excuse me for those I left out).

As Che Guevara said: "We are realists we dream the impossible:". With unity we can bring about the 2nd American Revolution and say goodbye to Trump and his cronies, but it is only possible if young folks especially, get out and vote at the very least, but please remember and help Alexandria, Rashida, Ilhan and Jamaal!

Mazel Tov and Hasta La Victoria Siempre for all the young people in New Haven and the world!

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar on horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lawn goes on.

Thank you to the Independent for including the videos which show speakers many of us missed hearing today due to the amazing large numbers at the NHPD. And thank you to the Youth Coalition for a great, peaceful rally with such diversity coming together against police brutality in a racially unbalanced system of justice. Several moments brought tears to my eyes- tears of mourning for so much cruel death, but also tears of hope.

Since my son was killed last year in New Haven in such a similar manner as George Floyd, only without the racism, I can't help but weep and cry out for Criminal Justice Reform. But my privilege means that I don't fear for my own life the way millions of blacks in America are forced to every single day. Our nation's very soul is on trial right now in the streets of nearly every city in America. LEOs standing and taking a knee with the people is a good start to changing the sick mindset.

A great next step would be the fulfillment of the Youth Coalition's Demand #4: "That every officer in the state of Connecticut that has been involved in the killing or beating of a civilian be prosecuted with the full weight of the law." Accountability is desperately needed.

My son loved New Haven and he loved all the colors of its residents. Robby would have been there today if he were still breathing, and in a way I believe he was there. I could almost see him dancing to the unity beats toward the end. His wonderful dancing would have made everyone smile. He would be so proud of his beloved New Haven today.

That's U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal in the picture captioned "Thousands gather on the Green at the start of the march." by the way. Appreciate the attention from electeds!

I suppose we can just forget about contact tracing...

Cunningham: Police have many tools. Unfortunately, too many of them resort to force, often lethal force, too quickly. As the Code Switch articles discusses, too, we are asking a huge amount of our police since we shut the mental asylums. We send police to deal with addicts and otherwise mentally ill, when they become too bothersome, yet we have no solutions for the underlying problems.

Blacks have a much higher rate of homelessness, unemployment, mental health/substance abuse problems. Police have become the primary means to control the fallout from these problems; politicians have been charged with creating more affordable housing, jobs programs and mental health/substance abuse programs. However, no one wants to mention the primary source for this societal collapse: the rapid disappearance of the family unit. Today c. 65% of black children grow up in a single-parent 'family'. This is NINE times the world average of 7%. This societal collapse negatively effects a child's well-being, maturation and future economic status. "Traditional family", "traditional moral values" and "religious traditions" always have gone hand-in-hand. So has our highly secularized, materialistic, ego-centric culture caused the collapse of these 3 institutions--or is it the other way around? In any event, until these basics have been figured out, you can expect an armed police force to remain primary enforcers of social order. Because a police officer charged with enforcing social order is a human who can experience fear, anger, bias, etc. in a tense situation, you also can expect more cases of over-reaction and brutality. If you want to see less of this, take care of your marriage and take care of your children. Fix the world by fixing your home.

The peaceful protests in New Haven are a good thing. They show that New Haven is a city where legitimate protest is a model. Chief Reyes sets the tone for his department and protest organizers are keeping most of the message on point.

The topic of defunding police isn't so good. So ridiculous that it's dangerous to the entire public. New Haven Police deal with thousands of calls for service every week. Who would be put in place to cover the calls for drug issues, mental health concerns, shoplifting, trespass cases, disorderly conduct, burglary, car theft and the thousands of property crimes committed every year? Who would investigate motor vehicle accidents? Any ideas from the defund advocates? None of the above list are crimes of violence which are frequent in any city. Police have to address these problems.

A small percentage of every population cause most violent crime and persistent crime issues. These are the career criminals just waiting for police to be defunded so they can get busy.

ChristopherSchaefer,

Whites enslaved Black people, and then oppressed them throughout emancipation and reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era, and the new Jim Crow. Here we are today.
Overwhelmingly, the Whites perpetrating disgusting oppression for hundreds of years had 2-parent families.
I fail to see the connection between the number of parents in a family and anti-Black racism. The comment about "family" is like a dog-whistle for racist pathology, and the inverse of that idea means Whites aren't victims of police brutality or extrajudicial killings because of two parent households, which is as sick as it is wrong.

Let's get this straight - we can't eat inside a restaurant or bar, can't park at Lighthouse or even sit at a picnic table, can't park at Long Wharf or Fort Hale and can't access East Rock or any street close to it - can't open businesses - and faced threats of being cut off from food etc - but you can protest in mass, not social distance, not wear masks properly, don't clean the megaphone or microphone of your germs and spit- while encouraging everybody to scream, shout and spew germs en mass.

Just open the damn city and quit pretending. All these people go home and quarantine after being in that petry dish. We may become Italy after all Mr. Mayor.

Disaster meets Disaster. I understand and applaud the deep need to peacefully protest as the horrific murders of black people have finally caught our collective attention. Black Lives Matter.
I also understand there's a once in a century pandemic we are in the middle of. Is it possible we can march and stay 6 feet apart, people? It's kind of a life and death issue amidst our protests over a life and death issue. If you've been to these rallies, follow CDC recs and get tested and self isolate unless negative.
Alas, these protests as they are now are super spreader events that will kill so many good people.
YNHH, please bring back out all the ventilators and ICU beds. 2 weeks from now I am afraid the wave will arrive again.

Thank you to the protestors for reinforcing the non-violence and keeping the focus on the message. Thank you to the police for supporting the marchers by doing traffic control.
If we had enough mental health support and resources and intervention. if we had enough addiction support and resources and intervention. If we had enough domestic violence victim support and resources for intervention for the perpetrator. if we had enough housing. If we had enough jobs. if we had enough child protection and family support and parental intervention resources. If we had enough counselors and therapists in our school systems. If we had enough teachers and teacher's aides to give each child the attention and educational support they need to have success in education. Maybe we wouldn't need that many police, or jails and prisons. It takes a village to raise our children, and to support them, steer them in the right direction, to pick them up when they fall, and dry their tears, and to help them succeed. Instead of killing black and brown people in foreign lands, for decades on end, and meddling in foreign governments, let's spend our taxes on ending the school to prison pipeline, and let's take care of our mentally ill and addicted. Instead of policing the addictive illegal drug trade, let's decriminalize it and instead regulate it, tax it heavily, and let all the profits go towards mental health and addiction care and services. Let's stop blaming the mothers for the lack of fathers, and instead ask ourselves how can we support men to become more involved with their children, and help them become better parents and ask ourselves how society separates minority men from their families through generations of racist policies by our government institutions. We need to take a good hard look at why we are where we are now, and and make changes in our society that supports and encourages healthy and successful lives for all of us.

A very serious question more than a comment:

Who do we press to enact the 8 excellent demands of the Citywide Youth Coalition?

• The Mayor?
  
• The Alders?
  
• Our State Representatives?
  
• All of the above, and more?
  
  If anyone has seen a concise plan of whom to call everyday, whose offices to camp out in front of, who to go after until we force action, please post it on here. I am new enough to the city to not know how to accomplish these changes. Thank you, and thank you to the CYC and all the others up front making this happen.

@Christopher Schaefer....

Perfectly stated. I couldn't agree with you more.

These people are all murderers. They are marching for a righteous cause, but the people are all marching with the bloods of Innocents on their hands. Every photo had people without masks. Each one of those people is spreading diseases that attack the weakest and most infirm members of our society. Just because you can't see the bodies doesn't mean you aren't murderers.

Because of these marches, thousands of innocent people will be hospitalized and die. Because of these marches, the drive-in Covid testing facilities of New Haven all shut down for several days. These are not the acts of thoughtful and introspective members of society. While millions of people stay home, and millions of people are undertaking extraordinary precautions to stay healthy, these protesters are emblematic of much that is wrong with American society today. Divisive, focused on self-aggrandizement, and uncaring of kneeing on the necks of innocents who can't breathe. This is not a race thing, it's a privilege thing. And Americans are so filled with privilege that they don't think about anyone else, or the consequences to anyone else, which is why they are involved in wars across the globe, why they produce home grown killers like Chauvin, serial liars and destroyer or institutions like Trump, and murderers like these protestors.

This group should NOT be asking to remove School Resource Officers!! The City of New Haven should have actually surveyed the New Haven Public School STAFF, Parents, and Students in 3 separate surveys to get THEIR input into THEIR communities. BLM-NH is a great movement to empower Black citizens, HOWEVER they should be careful to not speak for smaller communities and agencies on a MICRO level, when it is not their place to speak on. The NHPS community has no trouble speaking for themselves. Sometimes, protesters are just looking for a cause, and have good intentions with "how can we make things better", but do not understand when they are actually infringing on the voices of the people they are protesting "for". Survey the NHPS community FIRST- and find out what they think since THEY are the ones directly affected.

posted by: Christopher Schaefer on June 6, 2020 8:30am

Blacks have a much higher rate of homelessness, unemployment, mental health/substance abuse problems.

And White people are more likely to deal drugs, but black people are more likely to get arrested for it

Blacks are far more likely to be arrested for selling or possessing drugs than whites, even though whites use drugs at the same rate. And whites are actually more likely to sell drugs:

Whites were about 45 percent more likely than blacks to sell drugs in 1980, according to an analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth by economist Robert Fairlie. This was consistent with a 1989 survey of youth in Boston. My own analysis of data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 6.6 percent of white adolescents and young adults (aged 12 to 25) sold drugs, compared to just 5.0 percent of blacks (a 32 percent difference).This partly reflects racial differences in the drug markets in black and white communities. In poor black neighborhoods, drugs tend to be sold outdoors, in the open. In white neighborhoods, by contrast, drug transactions typically happen indoors, often between friends and acquaintances. If you sell drugs outside, you're much more likely to get caught.

Opioid Overdose Deaths Most Common Among Low-Income Whites,Then blacks.


https://www.psychcongress.com/news/opioid-prescriptions-overdose-deaths-most-common-among-low-income-whites

The Original Underclass.Poor white Americans

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/the-original-underclass/492731/

More Whites smoke hillbilly crack AKA crystal meth then Blacks.And also more whites use Hillbilly Heroin then Blacks.

https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/heroin-addiction/hillbilly-heroin/

Every been to West Virginia.Major that lives here are White People

West Virginia poverty gets worse under Trump economy.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-poverty-gets-worse-under-trump-economy-not-better/

@Chris246 re: "The topic of defunding police isn't so good"

You are absolutely correct, NHPD deals with thousands of service calls every week. They shouldn't. The police was built to protect private property as slave patrol and continues to do so to this day.

you ask: "Who would be put in place to cover the calls for drug issues, mental health concerns?"
Well if it isn't obvious POLICE do not need to address these problems. Mental health professionals, housing and homelessness professionals, domestic violence de-escalators, people actually trained to deal with situations like these, rather than militarized gun-slinging racially-profiling minimum 21 year olds who are literally taught to point and shoot at the head and heart.

you ask, who will deal with "shoplifting, trespass cases, disorderly conduct, burglary, car theft and the thousands of property crimes committed every year?"
Yes, these crimes need to be dealt with. But have you taken the time to consider why so many of these crimes happen in the communities that they do? Have you considered the systemic racism, prejudice, and oppression that have led to so many of these issues? have you thought about how police literally patrol black communities because they assume these things will happen? have you thought about why we are ACTIVELY defunding our schools and local community organizations, while funding our police department more each year? until we get to a place where the above mentioned crime rates are low, which means we begin funding community actions and organizations NOW, we can have a small specialized team that deals with these issues. but there is no reason to fund them as much and especially not more.

"Who would investigate motor vehicle accidents?" DETECTIVES. which does not have to be the same thing as POLICE.

FOR ANYONE DOUBTING THE POSSIBILITY OF A POLICE-FREE FUTURE:

http://aworldwithoutpolice.org/

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59ead8f9692ebee25b72f17f/t/5b65cd58758d46d34254f

I think it would be a great service to the community if the New Haven Independent would conduct deep reporting and analysis of the calls for police defunding and abolition in New Haven. Right now, these are rallying cries, but why not approach them with the seriousness they deserve? Examine them critically. Consult with the many experts in sociology, criminal justice, organizational management, and other relevant domains? Why not examine the police department's budget closely. Ask the police chief challenging questions. Will defunding and abolition improve public safety in our city? All of the residents of the city deserve to know the answer to that question.

My other thought for today is that our police commission, which has a diverse makeup and will soon have on it a national expert in criminal justice, work with the chiefs to perform a review of all departmental rules, orders, policies, and practices. Out of that process might come modifications in how we recruit, train, deploy, supervise, and discipline police officers aimed at improving safety and justice for people in our communities.

@Christopher Schaefer:
It's so funny when people criticize the structure of black families. Has it occurred to you what is the cause?
During slavery, white folks were responsible for the break up of black families as a means to ensure profits. White owners also routinely raping black women, along with the refusal to honor black marriages (hence the jumping of the broom) certainly didn't help model a Christian respect for marriage. The burden placed on the black community from just those two facts created a legacy lasting generations.

In the lynching era, the rampant murder of black men and children certainly didn't help families stay together. When you kill a father, his family becomes a single-parent family.

In the War on Drugs era coupled with the prison-industrial complex, again, white legislatures enacted laws to enrich white prison industry execs (through ALEC). When black men are then stopped and frisked at disproportionate numbers by law enforcement, and then held in jail because they cannot post bond, then what do you think happens to the family?

Funny also how when the opioid epidemic hit (mostly white people affected) we shifted our policy from jail to aid. That certainly helps white families. While black folks are still in jail for minor drug offenses

When police murder black men, what do you think happens to their families?

The trope of the brown black family is a red herring. Too many people using it simply don't know enough about WHITE HISTORY to have any authority on how black families have survived white terrorism.

Watch 13th by Ava DuVarney for more info.

Re: NHPS, I think one thing missed is that most teachers do not acknowledge their white supremacy and continuousy employ it in school management. Just like the police swear that racism has nothing to do what occurs in policing, teachers also claim to be racially objective and immune from bias, which is laughable. The majority of teachers are white women, many of whom are offended when their ingrained bias is pointed out, but who also insist on their right to speak for what is happening in schools, as though it's impossible that they may be part of a racist system and employ racists responses to children in school. I have seen so many white teachers kick kids out of class and unnecessarily escalate their punitive approaches by calling the SRO, and then things go south super fast from there. Get cops out of schools and instead learn about your own racist viewpoints, expectations, responses, and claim of objectivity in an obviously racist country.

If people still don't get that cops are not often, and rarely ever have been, present to serve and protect black folks. Calling the cops endangers kids of color.

If we are going to police ourselves, of course it is possible with the appropriate training and coalition building. The Nation of Islam under Malcolm X showed this ability, while the Black Panthers also showed that it is not only possible, but in the best interest of the black community. It allows for our (mostly) men to be dignified protectors of the community, rather than fodder for target practice for cops who clearly do not mind killing black folks, and it allows children to have a childhood rather than a training to be fodder for target practice.

If whites have run virtually every industry and organization in this country for the vast majority of its history, and we still have such fervent uprisings, then those running the show clearly don't know how to do what they purport to do.

Re: ThreeFifths posting: don't forget the opioid epidemic which has killed 250,000 in the last 5 years! was mostly white and met with a lot more sympathy than a joint used by a black man was.

@SteveHamm: Yes, we do need to look into these proposal, but Gary Winfield is Chair of the State Judiciary Committee. State Sen. Martin Looney is head of the Dems. Rosa DeLauro is a long time member of Congress. US Senators Murphy and Blumenthal also have standing.

@mashashevshev: Right on! Keep repeating until people get it.

@SteveHamm: your suggestions are good and reasonable, but the time to do something like that was 12 years ago when the Commission voted to set up a CRB immediately. 12 years later the Alders rushed a proposal through with the thought of taking a second look to see how it was working. That is NOT how to legislate.
And now we have had 12 years of scandal, abuse, violence and domestic terrorism in the black community.
Now is the time to work on dismantling this paramilitary set up and installing the community peace keeping the people actually want.
It can be done.
It takes vision.
It takes dialogue.
It does not require Yale experts. It requires listening to the people.
There's an old saying in Boston that, "I would choose to have the first 10 people out of the phone book run the government than the Board of Overseers of Harvard College"
Our excellent Transition Team Report would be a good place to start.

You white people really have to stop with your "blame the victim" approach.
If you think you can find a rationale for any of the misery US racism has inflicted on the innocent descendants of kidnapped, tortured, raped, exploited and terrorized Africans for 400 years, then you need to look at the man in the mirror to see what blocks equality and the right to exist today.

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Police-New-Haven-woman-shot-while-on-porch-with-15322834.php

Please let me know the outcome of the community investigation.

I went to several New Haven public schools and we never had "resource" officers aka police. I was in high school in the height of the 1980's crack drug epidemic and highly organized Neighborhood gangs rivalry caused almost nightly shootings in the city. And yet I never felt scared in my school. Because my magnet high school was small, our teachers and school counselor were very involved and they knew each student very well, and our student social groups interacted peacefully. My high school at the time was filled with students who had been kicked out of other schools or had chosen to leave those larger schools for our school. Large schools aren't conducive to student teacher interaction and create an atmosphere where students feel overwhelmed and overlooked and form groups for a sense of security and belonging. if I and my teachers and my fellow students never felt the need for an officer in my school, at the height of gang violence in the city, with students who were going to that school because they had been kicked out of other schools in the city, doesn't that tell you that the problem isn't a need for police in our schools, but the need for more teachers, smaller schools and classrooms, and more counselors and more student-teacher interaction? A more humane approach to schooling and students.

"Raise you words not your voice; It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."
Rumi

3/5's: So, should the city license outdoor drug dealing spots like it does food cart vendor space? If it did, would we not need some state-sanctioned force to enforce the property rights of the licensee? Should we try the same for street-walking prostitutes? Personally, I do not want drug-dealers, prostitutes, food carts, or any commercial sales in from of my house, although I didn't mind the traveling ice cream truck. Perhaps Craigslist could re-open for personal services and add drugs on delivery. I never thought the call-girl business model was bad, but didn't like the street-walker model. Note, if you have not seen it, "Comfort and Joy" is a great movie about rival ice cream vendors engaged in a violent war for territory in Glasgow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_and_Joy_(1984_film)
When I first saw it, I thought it was extremely imaginative parody. Decades later, I learned the Glasgow ice cream wars were real, although the trucks sold more than ice cream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Ice_Cream_Wars

@ PK - "you white ppl" Arent you white ?

speeding Susan or is it noise ordinance Nancy?

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/westville_crime_wave_riles_neighbors/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/06/05/us/amy-cooper-dog-returned-trnd/index.html

Dont get me started...

@PK if whining about speeders being arrested and the noise ordinance enforced doesnt reek of "white privilege", I dont know what does.

I truly hope, and Im not being facetious when I say this, but I truly hope all of the out of towners commit to help minorities and the inner city residents in New Haven.

I would really like to see everyone come to help with literacy and development programs for our kids to help bring long lasting development for our community. Please help our parents finish their educations. Please babysit the kids and read to them. Please help with infrastructure and enhance community pride in our city.

I hope this isn't just another facebook photo op for out of town people to use to make themselves feel better. I hope they're not using our community and kids as another photo op again. I call on everyone to sign a commitment to our city. If we can educate and lift-up our community with values, dignity, and respect that should be afforded to every person, we'll need police less and less.

If you're using NH for your facebook photo op, I ask you to just go home.

posted by: 1644 on June 7, 2020 2:55pm

3/5's: So, should the city license outdoor drug dealing spots like it does food cart vendor space?

Never said that.I was answering Christopher Schaefer when he said.Blacks have a much higher rate of homelessness, unemployment, mental health/substance abuse problems.

JWO asks a really great question, and I think it's telling that nobody has offered an answer. The fact is that the civic infrastructure of New Haven isn't particularly accessible to folks who are new to the city. I've been here six years and I feel like I'm only beginning to grasp how everything fits together. (I honestly have no idea what I would do without the New Haven Independent).

Here is my impression of the demands and the responsible officials. Please, folks who know better than I do, correct any misunderstandings I have:

"Replacing school resource officers with counselors." Board of Education controls this. Mayor has some influence.

"Cutting the police budget by $33 million and redirecting the balance to the public schools.
That $20 million be taken out of the budget for police pensions and be allocated to create affordable public housing instead." I don't know if pension obligations can be diverted in this way without breaking labor contracts. But, the general issue of funding the police department depends on the city budget (Mayor and Alders).

"That the city end the 'triple occupation' of New Haven currently performed by city police, Hamden police, and Yale police.
That the Board of Alders 'stop being complacent in entering more Yale Police Department Police officers into the New Haven community.'"
Mayor Elicker, Chief Reyes, and Alders would all need to play a part in this.

"That every officer in the state of Connecticut that has been involved in the killing or beating of a civilian be prosecuted 'with the full weight of the law.'"
State legislature. Senator Winfield pretty much has qualified immunity and Civilian Review Board legislation ready to go for a possible special session. It is now a matter of getting other legislators to support these reforms.

(continued in next post...)

(continued!)

"That the people who are appointed to the Civilian Review Board 'are viable people elected by the community.'"
Three of the CRB vacancies are under the direct control of the Board of Alders. The remainder need to be appointed by the mayor and then approved by the Alders.

"And the 'immediate end to police brutality within our city, state, and country.'"
This demand kind of echoes the big goal that ties all of the above together. Every elected official could probably do something.

Some officials are already actively working on these issues; others are hiding behind vague promises to "listen." Now is a moment of truth for many of our alders. I think we ought to pay close attention to which alders are doing specific things and able to describe particular things they are doing to confront these issues, and which alders have merely issued vague statements about "dialogue" and "listening."

Defund the police? Here's what that really means.

During my 25 years dedicated to police reform, including in places such as Ferguson, Mo., New Orleans and Chicago, it has become clear to me that "reform" is not enough.To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.Police themselves often complain about having to "do too much," including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped.Defunding and abolition probably mean something different from what you are thinking. For most proponents, "defunding the police" does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever. Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/?hpid=hp_opinions-abtest-control_opinion-card-d-right:homepage/story-ans

So much for COVID-19.

Isn't it amazing how it suddenly ceased to exist?

Father Fauci has not said ONE WORD about hundreds of thousands of people at close proximity, with perhaps 50% wearing masks at all. Curious.

For some I truly believe that defund does indeed mean abolishment, for example how the city counselors are looking to abolish the MN police department, which is completely unreasonable and ridiculous but I truly hope they achieve that goal, just don't complain when it's done.

I do agree with 3/5's when he/she says we should shrink the scope of some of the responsibilities of the police department, so if that means reallocating funds that were specifically designated for those duties then have at it, but to arbitrarily take funding to create some social justice reform program for the sake of being woke, then it's doomed to fail miserably but that's my opinion.

@CS

I agrew with some of your statement, I read an article that a child was turned into the police after they saw a picture of him firebombing a police cruiser, now imagine if all the parents of those children, let's not act like it's not true, involved in the rioting and looting held their kids feet to the flame. We want police to take responsibility for their misdeeds then why shouldn't we all, police yourselves before others. Anyway I'm sure someone will disagree or have an excuse or retort.

@Christopher Schaefer….

Perfectly stated. I couldn't agree with you more.

Astounding work, Addys Castillo! Your hand, heart and pre-preparation in training and organizing these dedicated youth beams through. ASE. Also, wonderful to see diverse, peaceful, concerned, conscious people openly involved. Excellent coverage, NHI and Arts Paper. We appreciate you.
To the young people: what you are asking for in your demands falls under the umbrella of REPARATIONS! Reparations is the act of repair, correction of wrongs and compensation for damages incurred. In our case, the wrongs and effects of a diabolical, unfathomable, 400 year, demonic, sanctioned institution: slavery. A slavery that inhumanely severed a people from humanity. The demand for reparations from the US government includes a Marshall Plan for the black communities in the US. It is a wholistic plan that addresses every aspect of the black community, which includes police reform, politics, education, health care, economics, social justice, criminal justice, family life, housing, etc. Repatriation is also included for those of us who rightfully desire to leave the US to return to Africa, if they choose to. Reparations and repatriation are inseparable. In your call for justice, call for reparations. Piecemeal reparations will not suffice. Call for a Marshall Plan. Says its name, "Reparations!" Say its name, "Repatriation". Say its name, "Marshall Plan for Black Communities". The world is asking, "What is our agenda?" That is our US agenda. Again, great job! We, the Elders, whose shoulders you stand upon, have been waiting for you to carry on our work! Dance on!

I don't know who "Father Fauci" is, but Dr, Fauci has spoken about the disease transmission dangers in these gatherings:
https://wtop.com/national/2020/06/dr-fauci-protests-are-perfect-setup-for-coronavirus-spread/
So, too, have other epidemiologists.
More interesting is the position of Newtown's Democrat First Selectman, criticizing the state party for encouraging people to violate the Democrat Governor's orders meant to restrict transmission of CoViD 19.
https://www.newtownbee.com/06052020/rosenthal-will-not-support-protests-takes-issue-with-state-dems-over-demonstration-database/
I suspect many people may be attending multiple demonstrations in multiple towns, creating a potential for many CoViD -19 Marys. The risk, however, is obvious, so I have to believe teh organizers and attendees are willing to trade more CoVid sickness and death for fewer police induced injuries and deaths.