Allan Appel photo
District Manager Lt. Fumiatti, Asst. Chief Zannelli, and Chief Jacobson on Thursday.
If retaliation is to come — and the police have concern that it might — for the Jan. 1 murder of Dontae Myers in Fair Haven, it will likely arrive in the form of a vehicle bearing young men with guns.
That’s why the police brass turned out in force Thursday night to inform Fair Haveners that motor vehicle units have been deployed to the neighborhood to try to stop suspicious vehicles that may be carrying drugs or guns.
And they will stay, along with other resources, until the danger or crime spike is reduced.
Thursday night that was the centerpiece of the message delivered by Police Chief Karl Jacobson and his top officers, Assistant Chiefs David Zannelli and Bertram Ettienne along with Fair Haven District Manager and Lt. Michael Fumiatti, at the latest regular monthly meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team.
Roughly 60 neighbors gathered, both via Zoom and in person at the Fair Haven Branch Library’s community room on Grand Avenue, for the group’s first such meeting of the year.
“I know right now you don’t feel safe,” Jacobson said, referencing a spike in Fair Haven area crime reflected in Myers’s death at the corner of Poplar and Grand on the first day of 2023 as well as the killing of a Hartford man, Ernie Negroni-Feliciano, not far away, on Saltonstall Avenue, on the last day of 2022.
That’s why “four to five officers have been added to the motor unit,” Jacobson continued. “Their only job is to stop cars. We know it’s making an impact already. Making stops even for traffic [violations] may keep out those entering especially for retaliation.”
While he would not comment on any details of either of the investigations, Jacobson said police have determined the two killings are not connected and that there are substantial leads being pursued in both cases; those leads are not unconnected to the identification of vehicles involved, thus the motor unit deployment.
In addition, the cops’ crime suppression unit, or officers in plain clothes, which unit is under the supervision of Assistant Chief Ettienne, are also in Fair Haven, along with a new hybrid walking beat.
“Hybrid,” Assistant Chief Zannelli explained, is when the officer spends time both in the cruiser and on foot speaking with neighbors. Hybrid, both because it’s winter and also, due to pressures of staffing, the officer in the cruiser can cover more territory.
“We’re trying to give Lt. Fumiatti all he needs,” Zannelli added. “We’d also like to add some community events.”
At Thursday's Fair Haven CMT meeting.
All of this went down well with the Fair Haveners listening intently to the chiefs, like long-time neighbor Robbie Roberts.
“The motor vehicle enforcement is a big thing,” he said. “I’m glad you brought it back.”
Another neighbor asked if the police teams were looking for any specific make or model of cars.
“I can’t get into detail, but we’ve identified [some] cars,” the chief responded. In such cases of targeted murders, however, “Usually retaliation is a car with guns.”
In addition to the beefed up police presence, Jacobson said in the coming weeks the police will conduct door to door canvassing of neighborhoods in Fair Haven. Those canvasses are organized by Clifford Beers, which invites the police department and other community organizations to participate.
There followed a brief but intense discussion of general community concerns about crime and its suppression, the questions that always pop up when police brass arrive and residents have a chance to speak to them face to face:
When will more officers be deployed?
The chiefs’ answer: Some 30 officers are in varying stages of training in various academies and some may be available to start, but not till the spring. Jacobson reiterated his love of bike patrols and said many of the new officers, when they come on line, will do so on foot or on bike.
What’s to be done about the continuing open drug dealing on street corners, such as Grand and Poplar, where the recent homicides occurred? It’s this omnipresence of low-level, visible nefarious activity that increases the perception of safety’s absence, meeting attendees said.
The chiefs’ answer: We can arrest 50 low-level users and sellers but that won’t itself alter the fundamental reality that a lot of people are making big money on that corner; we can’t arrest our way out of this, said Lt. Fumiatti. Disrupting the bad activity with good activity, such as the community itself initiated at the Grand and Atwater plaza, is the way to go.
Referencing the motor units in police, Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago wondered if too many people are getting away because of the police rules against chasing criminals fleeing in cars? Should the rules be altered?
Jacobson was adamant that the rules are good. “In my 15-year career I was in two chases where two people were killed when the suspect hit them with a car.”
Instead of chasing, some new/old technologies are going to be introduced into the department’s quiver, he added. These include “Stop Sticks,” which you set up to pop a fleeing vehicle’s tires. The chief also referenced a technology called “StarChase” that shoots out a tracker that adheres to a fleeing car “and we know where it goes and we don’t have to chase them.”
With new technologies like these, already purchased by the department, he said, and to be deployed in the spring, “officers can feel their hands are not tied” in catching suspects when they are not permitted to physically chase.
Kara Hunter, representing the Mary Wade Home, said her institution will be happy to open its doors to upcoming safety-enhancing events.
As the meeting concluded and chiefs mingled and then left, several meeting participants offered their contact info volunteering to be part of the upcoming canvassing.
Christina Griffin.
Yet how in fear indeed are Fair Haveners?
Brewery Square resident Christina Griffin was very glad to hear the reassurance offered during the evening. “My husband is a part time Uber driver. So, yes, I am afraid, feeling especially unsafe at night.”
Woolsey Street resident Liz Tyghter de Velasques, a new co-chair of the FHCMT who conducted the meeting, had a slightly different response. “I’ve never had anything personal happen to me,” she said, “but the [police] short-staffing does affect the neighborhood.”
Long-time area activist Lee Cruz, also a co-chair of the group, said he personally does not feel unsafe. Cruz and his wife, Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller, continue to feel comfortable taking walks in the neighborhood even at night. “This is a community I know and it knows me and my children” he said.
Yet he did not consider the police deployment an over-reaction. “I know how many people don’t feel that way. If it helps people feel safe, I’m all for it.”
Your regular reminder that Sen. Winfield's "Police Accountability Bill" laid the groundwork to ban the police from stopping cars and doing other types of proactive policework to keep communities safe.
"There is established a task force to study police transparency and accountability. The task force shall examine... (7)the establishment of primary and secondary traffic violations in the general statutes; (8) the establishment of a requirement in the general statutes that any police traffic stop be based on the enforcement of a primary traffic violation"
https://www.cga.ct.gov/2020/TOB/H/PDF/2020HB-06004-R00-HB.PDF