Reyes Makes The Rounds

Otoniel Reyes began his police career as a young beat patrol officer keeping in touch with the pulse of the neighborhoods.

Twenty-one years later, as chief, he’s repeating those steps — hitting community management team meetings over the past week in Dixwell, East Rock, and Newhallville to check in with neighbors on his department’s response to a crime uptick and demands for change.

His pitch has been the same at each meeting: Updating and allaying residents’ anxiety on the uptick in violence and the effects of the pandemic. Reminding people that ​“we are not Minnesota.” Contemplating a new vision of policing. And wanting more than anything to listen.

The reactions differed by neighborhood.

Dixwell: Focus On Ex-Felons

At last Thursday’s telephone-conducted Dixwell Community Management Team meeting, the chief said he was there mainly to listen, and to make himself available to answer people’s concerns about the fact that the city so far had 58 shooting incidents and 11 homicides in 2020 compared to 36 and six at the same point last year.

The homicides and shootings that have occurred in New Haven during the first two weeks of July have been the most serious stretch of violence since 2011. The number of shootings has dropped since then.

Reyes detailed behind the scenes work of his officers, arrests made, and one-on-one Project Longevity=style meetings with the recently released felons who are the ones primarily on both the trigger and the receiving end of the bullets. He received expressions of appreciation for his officers’ work in tough times.

Then he fielded a first question from Dixwell CMT Chair Nina Silva:

“Is it true the uptick in violence is due to people getting out [of prison] due to Covid?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t say it’s due to people released due to Covid,” Reyes replied. ​“That’s a mischaracterization. A high percentage were on probation or parole, and many were released in 2019 and in the last six months.”

That said, Reyes explained that the pandemic has indeed had an effect in that it had limited some of the c ounseling visits and in-person supervision with recently released people.

Vice Chair Crystal Gooding pressed Reyes on whether the shootings were at all random or having to do with retaliation.

In a calm voice, which he maintained throughout his phone interactions, Reyes said, as he did at the other CMT meetings, that indeed many of the causes are payback for old beefs, disputes about women, disrespect, and territory.

Dixwell/Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter asked for more detail about the kinds of one-on-one preventive interactions the police are having with ex-felons as they return to the community.

“We let them know there are services available to them,help with jobs, if they put the guns down,” Reyes replied. ​“Sometimes it has a big effect on their psyche. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

In some instances, where an individual is dangerous or in danger of being shot, officers go to a judge and get permission for the person to be fitted out with a GPS monitor, Reyes said.

Another Dixwell questioner asked whether more guns are infiltrating the New Haven area. Reyes said yes, terming it a major ongoing concern, one of the ones with which the department is working with federal partner agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF). That’s important in part because many shooting victims are not cooperative or helpful in terms of giving leads. Reyes said there have been six gun seizures in the last several weeks.

East Rock: Appreciation, & Calls For Change

By Monday night, when Reyes Zoomed into the East Rock Community Management Team meeting, the number of shootings had increased to 59.

Reyes’s message was the same: The lion’s share of victims are on probation or parole, although that doesn’t account for everything. Yet of ​“those in the forefront, many are shooting retaliations and gang related.”

He called the pandemic, the new national critical analytic eye being cast on policing, and last year’s exodus of officers from the department ​“a perfect storm of issues.”

Reyes also put on the table that ​“robberies and burglaries are up as well, and I wanted to address your concerns.”

No one of the 23 East Rock attendees asked about those crimes — even though bicycle, garage, and backyard burglaries are a perennial concern in East Rock.

East Rock CMT Chair David Budries instead got personal, by way of expressing appreciation: ​“How are you feeling as police, as people?”

“It’s a difficult time,” Reyes answered. ​“We’re trying to be part of the solution and hoping the current climate doesn’t alienate us from the community. The officers are feeling a little uncertain about the future.”

Then Reyes paused trying to find the mot juste.

“A touch apprehensive,” he said. ​“They need to hear from the community that they are wanted … appreciated.”

There followed a fulsome expression of appreciation of Reyes and especially of the neighborhood’s top cop, Lt. Manmeet Colon, and their efforts to navigate trying times.

That did not keep East Rockers such as Mark Aronson and neighborhood Alders Charles Decker and Abby Roth from pressing Reyes on if and how the NHPD might do fewer tasks, perhaps with the fewer resources available in tough budget times.

“Are there areas you can reduce police expenditure?” Aronson asked, citing the wide range of calls, like drug overdoses, to which other agencies may more appropriately be able to respond.

“The short answer is yes,” replied Reyes.

He used a sports metaphor to characterize the police as ​“a utility player for the city, plugging up holes.” The underlying issue is not policing, but poverty and other disparities, he said. ​“It is time to change the roof,” meaning to stop having cops serve as handymen fixing just the leaks and to consider the entire structure.

But he cautioned that as New Haven addresses those underlying issues, ​“the danger of the national conversation is that it drives steps that might not be right for New Haven.”

“Thanks for the thoughtful conversation,” bicycle advocate Rob Rocke responded over the Zoom chat function.

“What can we do as a CMT to advance that police conversation?” asked another attendee.

“I think the CRB [Civilian Review Board] is one way,” replied Alder Decker. ​“It’s one piece of the puzzle.”

He added that attending the public hearings and making yourself heard on the budget process present the ​“best opportunity.”

Aronson asserted that citizens don’t have any ​“granular” police budget available to examine, for example, when the police buy a new cruiser for a certain amount, that, if cut, could instead buy a certain number of desks at a financially strapped school.

A brief if tense and inconclusive discussion ensued about whether a 450-plus page city budget is granular enough regarding the police and other departments. Alder Roth insisted that personally attending city meetings is the most valuable way to gain greater understanding of how funds are spent.

Over the chat function another East Rocker, Austin Bryniarski, wrote: ​“I am also interested in how East Rock can show up for de-funding the police.”

The meeting from beginning to end was genial and appreciative of Reyes and especially Lt. Colon, but this CMT had also thrown down the gauntlet of the intense scrutiny of the police and their budget, a harbinger of meetings to come.

Newhallville: Lights, Locals … Action

Over in Newhallville Tuesday night, Reyes joined a CMT meeting of about 15 neighbors through a phone conference hosted by Chair Kim Harris. He repeated his reasons for being there, to allay anxiety about the recent shootings and to listen.

By this time, Tuesday night, the shootings in the city had risen to 60.

Harris and Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn started the gathering out on a high note.

“Thanks for your integrity,” Clyburn said, ​“in being chief at such a time.”

Then she launched, on behalf of her constituents, into a litany of perennial nuts-and-bolts safety concerns that remain pressing even in times of Covid and violence upticks.

Is ShotSpotter working, and is it distinguishing between firecrackers and gun shots? she asked.

It is, and it does Reyes replied.

Then he offered to provide Clyburn and other CMT members with details of the coverage area.

“We want to thank Lt. Colon for going around Ward 20 looking at trees [needing trimming] and lighting,” Clyburn continued. Then she appealed to Reyes to ​“put a heavy push” on the departments involved to have that kind of work done expeditiously.

Reyes said he would help make those a priority. Later in her summary of the district issues, Lt. Colon reported new lights have just been installed to troubled corners of Read Street.

Reflecting a national concern, another questioner turned the conversation to whether outside police forces are coming to the area.

“We work with our federal partners like the FBI on how we can augment what we’re doing,” Reyes responded. ​“It’s not like they’re coming and driving through. When I’ve asked state police to help, it’s in certain areas of the Hill or on Whalley Avenue to do some speed enforcement. Those are state roads. We’re not ​‘crying uncle.’ The role they’re playing is ancillary and within their purview.”

Another questioner implored Reyes and the department to recruit local and preferably Newhallville natives to become officers.

Reyes replied that five of the 17 new recruits are native New Haveners. ​“A lot of New Haveners did apply in the original group” of several hundred that were winnowed down over the long process of selection, said the chief, who grew up in the Hill. ​“That percentage from New Haven is not indicative of of our effort to attract New Haven talent.”

Reyes promised to work more intensely with management teams such as Newhallville’s to get the word out to local people to apply to the next classes of recruits. The recruitment pitch, which he said he’d share with the team in the coming weeks, is that now is a good time to become a cop, when ​“positive, restorative change is coming.”

Harris pronounced Reyes’ answer ​“beautiful.” Echoing Budries in East Rock, she asked, ​“how is the morale of our offices, and what can we do to help?”

“I keep saying,” Reyes concluded, that a community should have the police department it wants. ​“What we prioritize should be up to the community. We want you to know we are not on the other side of this. We are not Minnesota or New York. We are Lt. Colon; we are not Chauvin. We are the men and women you know well who care about you as we try to take in this broader message of police reform.”