Markeshia Ricks Photo
Kimber with fellow ministers Monday outside Superior Court.
YALE Law School
Tracey Meares: National cop-community trust guru, based here.
As the public awaits the impending release of body camera footage of a police shooting of an unarmed woman in Newhallville, attention turned Monday to establishing a new set of rules for how suburban cops pursue suspects into New Haven.
The Rev. Boise Kimber and fellow clergy raised that issue among others in an hour-long closed-door sit-down Monday morning at the Church Street Superior Court building with New Haven State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin.
They met to discuss last week’s early-morning volley of bullets fired by a Yale and a Hamden cop into a car on Dixwell Avenue with two unarmed people inside, sending a female passenger to the hospital with bullet wounds to the torso and facial injuries. (Read more about the shooting and its aftermath here and here.)
Speaking to reporters, Kimber said he couldn’t go into great detail about what was discussed with Griffin but he said he and fellow ministers came away from the meeting more confident about the ongoing investigation.
“He has assured us and this community that we can look for justice to prevail,” Kimber said of Griffin. Kimber said that the ministers were told that the footage that has already been released has been sent to the state lab for enhancement but the body camera footage from the Hamden officer would be coming this week.
“We believe that this office here is going to be honest and true with this community,” Kimber added.
Kimber said while the investigation is happening, the ministers plan to head to Hamden’s town council meeting Monday night to talk with leaders about the community’s expectations for the police department and about urban trauma training. He also said the group of ministers also will be making similar plans to talk with leaders in West Haven, East Haven, North Haven, and more talks with Yale University.
Meanwhile, Mayor Toni Harp echoed a call for new written agreements with suburban towns about protocol for police border-crossing as well as training.
Speaking on the latest edition of NHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program, Harp called that “one of the lessons” so far of last week’s shooting.
She noted that state law allows cops to cross town lines to pursue suspects. And she noted that several suburban communities border New haven.
“We’ve got to [work on] the relationships with East Haven, with West Haven, with North Haven,” Harp said. “Our town is too small; there are too many towns that abuts us.” So New Haven needs to have clear written protocoals with each of those towns, she said.
YALE Law School
Tracey Meares: National cop-community trust guru, based here.
Harp said that in private discussions officials have talked about reaching out for guidance to, among others, Yale Law School’s Tracey Meares, who served on President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing and has helped train cops nationwide on “procedural justice,” or building police-civilian trust. “Tracey Meares has been on the leading edge of translating the principles of justice and legitimacy,” former New Orleans and Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas is quoted as saying in this Yale Alumni Magazine profile of Meares and her work.
Meares and fellow Yale Law Professor Tom Tyler founded The Justice Collaboratory. The collaboratory combines theory and empirical research in promoting criminal justice reform.
“It is our view that police, in general, whether urban or suburban, should be trained about contexts that will affect their job,” said Meares, who was a member of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, argued in an email message Monday.
Tyler said their initiative links police departments with experts to help with this kind of training, for which he said last week’s shooting demonstrated a definite need.
He suggested that in this case, deescalation training might be more important than the urban-suburban concern.
“One aspect of de-escalation training is that unless there is an immediate threat to others officers shelter behind cars and encourage a suspect to emerge in a manner that allows them to determine whether the suspect is armed from a safe location,” Tyler stated. “This means that officers are not in danger and can keep the level of force low. From that point of view the question is why the Hamden officer emerged from his car so close to the suspect vehicle and in a manner that put him in immediate threat if the suspect had been armed. The officer could have driven further and turned his car to face the suspect car thereby giving them shelter. From that safe location they could have ordered the occupants to get out of the car and lie on the street. That procedure is taught in many departments and I am not sure why it was not utilized in this situation.”
Also Monday, the state’s attorney’s office reported that it has obtained a warrant to search the shot-up vehicle, a precursor to releasing a long-awaited police body camera video later this week.
Click the Facebook Live video below to catch the ministers’ press conference.
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WNHH’s “Mayor Monday” is made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.
can we train the urban criminals to only attempt their robberies in New Haven?