Maya McFadden Photo
Mayra Woodhouse addressing neighbors at Sunday’s rally.
Marya Woodhouse heard the gunshots that killed her nephew — and now wants to see her neighbors join her in making Cedar Hill a safer neighborhood.
Woodhouse recounted that tragedy and issued that call at a neighborhood rally held Sunday afternoon at Cedar Hill Avenue and Grace Street.
Woodhouse, 41, lives on Grace Street. She has lived in the neighborhood since she was 16. I‑91 cuts off the compact Cedar Hill neighborhood in the shadow of East Rock near the Hamden line, bordered by Warren Place, View Street, Rock, Grace and State streets.
Woodhouse was in the house on Nov. 17 around 8 p.m. when she heard gunshots. She didn’t leave the house, but she and family members looked outside and saw her 24-year-old nephew Tylee Bellamy on the ground. She called 911, as did other adults in the house. And they waited for police to arrive.
Now she’s picking up the pieces, she said at the rally, where she stepped up to the microphone in a mask picturing Bellamy’s face. Woodhouse is raising five kids, she said, and her family now must also care for Bellamy’s four kids stripped of a father.
Bellamy’s murder was one of numerous shootings to plague the neighborhood in recent weeks. Neighbors called Sunday’s rally to demand action from each other and from the police.
They demanded the community “love your neighbor as yourself,” in the words organizer Pastor Esau Greene.
Woodhouse noted that the closure of English Drive limits how quickly law enforcement was able to respond during the time Bellamy was shot. She felt it took too long for police to arrive, in far fewer numbers than she saw respond to a shooting on Thanksgiving Day.
She also criticized the safety of the neighborhood and its disconnect with the police.
City officials joined neighbors at the Sunday rally to pray for the community and discuss the spike in violence and drug activity, the closure of one of two exit roads out the neighborhood, and the desire for more officers on the street.
“Today we’re not just plagued with Covid. We’re plagued with a lack of love for one another,” said Greene.
After the rally Mayor Justin Elicker (who represented Cedar Hill ten years ago as an alder) reached out to Woodhouse to discuss further her concerns about the neighborhood’s policing. The two agreed to reconnect later this week. Elicker also said he will talk with the 911 call center and chief of police to determine if the incident’s response time was inadequate.
At the end of April, English Drive and Farnam Drive were closed to cars by the city along East Rock Park with the goal of giving pedestrians and cyclists in the park more room to socially distance.
This closure limited drivers’ exit from Cedar Hill and its one-way roads to one route.
Neighbors Sunday suggested that has limited police and ambulance response times.
After hearing Cedar Hill’s concerns, Elicker said he is open to exploring the issue. “It’s important to weigh all voices,” he said. Since April, however, Elicker said he has received overwhelmingly positive comments about the road closure.
Neighbors listened in to the rally from their front porches.
The neighborhood has three ways in and one way out. “It’s not safe or realistic,” Greene said.
Megan Ifill.
Cedar Hill resident Megan Ifill said when the neighborhood got together years ago to clean up an abandoned home on Grace Street, Woodhouse was the first to offer a helping hand. “That’s the part that you’re not seeing because of that pain,” she said.
Greene, who grew up in Cedar Hill and still has family in the community, said the neighborhood has been “infiltrated.”
Neighbors vowed to hold landlords like Mandy Management accountable for drugs and violence associated with their tenants, Greene said. “They let anybody rent in this neighborhood. They don’t care if they deal drugs. They’re not thinking about how they are a part of letting our kids see paraphernalia.” (Click here for a previous story about Mandy’s relationship with the neighborhood, including the landlord’s side. Click here to read about a 2019 sweep of illegal apartments.)
Also discussed Sunday was a planned mentoring program for young boys in the neighborhood to be started by neighbor Alfred Chow-Yen. Chow-Yen is known in Cedar Hill for teaching young kids how to fix up and ride bikes and taking them on fishing trips. And neighbors hope to encourage the local businesses to invest in the neighborhood youth by offering them jobs to serve in their community.
At the rally, Greene called on neighbors to provide information about Bellamy’s murder.
“It’s not snitching. It’s being a responsible citizen,” Greene shouted down the streets. “Someone’s life was taken. It’s time for the neighborhood to love itself.”
Wayne McCrea.
Rev. Wayne McCrea joined Greene in leading the rally. McCrea said the neighborhood’s next steps will include reviving its block watch.
“This is a loving demand for three permanent police out here,” said Cedar Hill advocate Camille Ansley.
Ansley said the neighborhood should have an officer on foot, on bike, and in a patrol car regularly.
For years solutions for Cedar Hill residents’ concerns have come at a “snail’s pace,” said Ansley. Issues like the need for speed bumps on Grace Street have still yet to be heard.
In the coming weeks the community plans to plant a tree by Woodhouse’s home as a memorial for Bellamy.
Esau Greene.
“This is a small beginning. We’re bringing hope to the hood,” Greene said.
Elicker only hears from the bike [advocates]. His closure is not fact or data or science based. That park is over 400 acres. That anybody needs access to the park limited for open space and distancing purposes is just plain nutty. This is a policy looks for a crisis. Just stop it.