by and | Jun 6, 2025 4:31 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen file photo
YPD strike on the horizon?
The Yale police union has voted 51 – 0 to authorize a strike — as contract negotiations have hit an impasse over pay, drug testing, disability benefits, and timeframes for civilian complaints.
Continue reading ‘Yale Police Union Votes To Authorize Strike’
by | Jun 5, 2025 9:10 am | Comments (5)
Mona Mahadevan photos
Yevdokia Eisenmann and Sophie Yu field questions from their judging panel.
Judging panel Kelly Meza, Yoselin Perez, Audrey Zelezniak Berezowski, and Isabella Aboaf share feedback with an eighth grade team.
As Trump administration lawyers and critics debate whether undocumented migrants are entitled to due process in deportation proceedings, eighth grader Maseo Regan argued that the use of “person” instead of “citizen” in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment means that anyone on American soil — citizen or non-citizen — deserves that basic legal fairness.
Maseo delivered that argument with three of his classmates from Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) during a mock Congressional hearing at the New Haven Museum.
by | Jun 2, 2025 2:19 pm | Comments (8)
Allan Appel photos
Frank Carrano (right), with Shirley Neighbors: "Is that you?"
Cheers to the striking Class of 1975!
Wearing sweatshirts bearing the number of New Haven teachers who were sent to jail in a historic two-week strike back in 1975 — 90 of them! — 25 members of that proud class of incarcerated instructors gathered for a reunion Saturday morning.
by | May 30, 2025 4:22 pm | Comments (24)
Maya McFadden photo
Rev. Scott Marks: “Imagine the workers who make this city work, who are undocumented, the nervousness that they may have. We want to fight to make sure that this city remains safe.”
Update: As of Monday, DHS appears to have taken down the online “sanctuary jurisdictions” list entirely. See below for Friday’s original article in full.
New Haven is now officially on the Trump administration’s list — of “sanctuary jurisdictions” that the federal government has newly called out by name for “deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws” and thereby “endangering American communities.”
At a Friday press conference at City Hall, Mayor Justin Elicker, Police Chief Karl Jacobson, Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow, local labor leader Scott Marks, and immigrant rights activist Ambar Santiago-Rojas, among others, pushed back on that characterization — even as they embraced New Haven’s distinction as a “welcoming city” for all.
“This is something we expected,” Elicker said, “and we’re proud of it.”
by | May 30, 2025 10:35 am | Comments (2)
(Updated) A woman was found dead in Edgewood Park Friday morning in an incident that does not appear to involve foul play.
by | May 29, 2025 9:29 am | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen file photo
Former union prez Frank Ricci: Looking to preserve pension bump signed off on by 3 mayors.
The trial date for a five-year-old lawsuit filed by the Board of Alders against the Elicker administration over the former fire union president’s pension deal has been pushed back amid a request to have a judge dismiss the case on the grounds that, legally, the city can’t sue itself.
Continue reading ‘Ricci Seeks To Scrap Alders Vs. City Suit’
by | May 28, 2025 1:24 pm | Comments (2)
Atlanta police arresting James Forman Sr. in Atlanta in 1963.
James Forman Jr. Tuesday at WNHH FM.
James Forman Jr. doesn’t need convincing that protests can change America. He just needs to look at a wall in his home.
by | May 27, 2025 9:53 pm | Comments (3)
A missing person alert from the NHPD.
by | May 22, 2025 1:39 pm | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby file photo
Steve Winter and Justin Elicker, celebrating court's block of Trump's "illegal and unjustified" funding freeze.
Another federal judge has ruled for New Haven and against the Trump administration, ordering the feds to reinstate three environmental grants totaling $31 million.
by | May 22, 2025 12:07 pm | Comments (10)
Michael Taylor has remained at the helm of Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center as he faces charges for fatally driving into a pedestrian in January.
by | May 21, 2025 2:51 pm | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen photo
Grandma Yolanda Herring (center): "Maleak, we love you and miss you always."
City police have arrested a 21-year-old man from Waterbury for the slaying of 16-year-old New Havener Maleak Sweets in Newhallville in January 2024.
by | May 20, 2025 3:00 pm | Comments (0)
Homicide victim Howard Lewis (center) with family in early July 2020.
A 26-year-old New Havener was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the 2020 killing of Howard Lewis, an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a Munson Street shooting.
by | May 20, 2025 12:51 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen file photo
Vanesa Suarez (center) at a New Haven PD protest in July 2024.
The West Haven Police Department has begun investigating its own investigation into the 2023 sudden death of Roya Mohammadi.
They’re doing so in response to a civilian complaint filed by a pair of New Haven anti-domestic-violence activists who allege that cops botched the first months of their looking into the role that the 29-year-old Afghan immigrant’s uncle — identified in one police report as her “uncle/boyfriend” — may have played in Mohammadi’s drowning.
Continue reading ‘Activists Claim Police Misconduct In Roya Case’
by | May 16, 2025 4:23 pm | Comments (12)
Mona Mahadevan photos
Foxon Smoke Shop was open for business on Friday. The interior smelled strongly of incense.
At the front of the store, Vape R Us sells backpacks with cartoon characters next to a Dragon Ball Z-inspired mural.
Police plan to submit six warrants to state court Friday for the arrests of one owner and one employee each at three smoke shops where cops seized around 100 pounds of cannabis products during a crackdown on illegal sales.
The warrants follow three cease-and-desist orders issued by the Building Department on Wednesday that require the stores — Foxon Smoke Shop, Blue Sky Smoke Shop, and Vape R Us — to stop selling pot without a valid permit.
by | May 14, 2025 3:04 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Asst. Chief Bhagtana kicks off Wednesday's presser.
Naysha Mendez, as pictured in a Washington Memorial Funeral Home obituary video.
Naysha Mendez’s family wasn’t present at police headquarters Wednesday afternoon — but the fullness of their loss loomed large at a press conference about the arrest of the man who allegedly stabbed to death the 35-year-old New Haven mother of three.
Continue reading ‘Cemetery Murder Arrest Marked, In Family's Absence’
by | May 13, 2025 4:11 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
A view of Evergreen Cemetery, where Naysha Mendez was killed on May 2.
At the end of a police interview in which he confessed to stabbing to death 35-year-old New Havener Naysha Mendez in Evergreen Cemetery over a $700 debt, Edwin Arroyo-Roman “re-enacted the homicide” to show officers how he allegedly committed that murder.
Continue reading ‘Warrant: Alleged Killer Confessed To Cemetery Murder, Cited $700 Debt’
by | May 13, 2025 8:00 am | Comments (8)
Two officers and four juveniles were injured over the weekend after a stolen Kia crashed into two cop cars, leading to the arrest of the vehicle’s 16-year-old driver.
Continue reading ‘16-Year-Old Arrested After Crashing Stolen Car’
by | May 9, 2025 11:12 am | Comments (11)
Man spits at pro-Palestinian protester.
(Updated) City police are looking for a man who appeared to shout an anti-trans slur at a pro-Palestinian protester before spitting in that protester’s face.
Continue reading ‘Cops Probe Spitting Incident At Ben-Gvir Protest’
by | May 8, 2025 1:23 pm | Comments (20)
Laura Glesby Photos
A "Wonka Bar" allegedly found at Vape R Us.
State consumer protection chief Bryan T. Cafferelli: Consumers beware.
Wait… Was that a vanilla milk chocolate Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar selling for $5.99? Or a 36.25 percent THC-infused “Häagen-Za” bar selling for $59.99?
What looked at first like an American ice cream staple was actually a highly potent cannabis edible, allegedly on the shelves of the toy-store-imitating smoke shop “Vape R Us” on Wednesday.
By Thursday morning, the “Häagen-Za” bar sat in a garbage bag alongside 100 pounds of other cannabis products seized by police from three smoke shops across the city.
Continue reading ‘Cannabis Haul Tallied After Smoke Shop Raids’
by | May 7, 2025 4:19 pm | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen photo
Greg Perez, Jr., at mic: "He always loved his family."
A dispute at a Carmel Street tattoo party saw a 27-year-old New Havener allegedly shoot and kill 45-year-old Gregory Perez — before wracking up a handful of other warrants and fleeing to Boston, where city cops ultimately found him a year later and arrested him for murder.
by | May 7, 2025 2:37 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Chief Jacobson: Suspect has already confessed.
Less than a week after police found 35-year-old New Havener Naysha Mendez stabbed to death in Evergreen Cemetery, cops have arrested a 55-year-old man who they said has confessed to the crime.
by | May 6, 2025 11:57 am | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
On the front steps of the Walnut St. house where Russell McKenzie was killed.
“He’s not waking up.” “He got shot,” a 35-year-old woman cried over the phone as she called 911 for help.
Police later determined that that 911 caller was the one who did the shooting — potentially because she was high and did not know that the gun she was pointing at her ex-boyfriend was a real weapon.
by | May 5, 2025 1:18 pm | Comments (7)
Maya McFadden file photo
Shayna Kendall, now reinstated with NHPD.
A police sergeant who was fired for allegedly lying about a traffic stop-turned-civilian complaint has now been reinstated with the New Haven Police Department — which she is also suing in federal court for racial and gender discrimination.
by | May 5, 2025 12:38 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen file photo
Chief Jacobson: Mendez's death was an "isolated incident."
Police have opened a homicide investigation into the death of 35-year-old New Havener Naysha Mendez, whom officers found suffering from “multiple wounds” in Evergreen Cemetery Friday night.
Continue reading ‘35-Year-Old Homicide Victim Found In Cemetery’
by | May 5, 2025 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Judge Steven D. Jacobs' "The Joy of Flight"; Jacqueline S. Cushing's "Boyhood."
Twenty lawyers, judges and legal aides presented exhibits before a downtown crowd serving as witnesses (and jury?) to what happens when legal actors drop their arguments and written rulings for forays in favor of nonverbal expression.