Cops, Clergy Check In On Prez Village

Diamond Short held her two-month-old daughter in her arms as she answered her apartment’s front door — to find a police chief and a pastor offering an update and reassurance in the wake of a horrific incident involving the discovery of another baby.

The visitors showed up to let Short (at right in photo) know that an eight-month-old girl who had been found in a dumpster at the complex earlier this week is going to be OK.

Chief Otoniel Reyes and Upright Ministries Outreach Rev. Wayne McCrae made that house visit Thursday afternoon during a cops-and-clergy walkthrough of the Presidential Village apartment complex on Shelton Avenue in Newhallville.

The community outreach effort came three days after a maintenance worker at the complex found the eight-month-old girl who had been placed in a dumpster near the 500 block of Dixwell Avenue. The girl is still hospitalized, though on the path to making a full-recovery, Reyes said.

The Hamden baby sitter accused of assaulting the baby’s mother before leaving the little girl in the dumpster, meanwhile, has been arrested and is being held on $500,000 bond.

Reyes and McCrae — along with Asst. Police Chiefs Renee Dominguez, Herb Sharp, and Karl Jacobson, neighborhood top cop Lt. Manmeet Colon, as well as Rev. Boise Kimber and social worker Maria Rodriguez — spent an hour knocking doors in the subsidized apartment complex.

They weren’t there as part of the ongoing investigation into what happened and why on Monday.

Rather, they set their sights on filling residents in on the latest in the case, asking how they are doing, and giving them contact information for police, pastors, social workers and mental health clinicians in case they need to talk about the recent trauma that has afflicted their community.

“We’re happy to report that she’s stable,” Reyes said about the eight-month-old girl. ​“The child is going to be OK.” He and Jacobson handed Diamond Short their business cards with phone numbers for the police department and the Clifford Beers children’s mental health clinic, while McCrae gave her a card for his church.

Short breathed a sight of relief, her daughter Jream Jones held tightly in her arms.

“It’d be nice if it always happens like this,” Short said after the police and clergy had moved on to the next apartment. Getting an in-person update and check in so soon after such a tragic incident gave her a small sense of relief. ​“That junk was crazy,” she said about what happened Monday. ​“It was really emotional. I broke down when I heard.”

McCrae, Kimber and Rodriguez are recent graduates of the local police department’s clergy academy. Reyes said Thursday’s apartment complex walk-through was an effort by the department to leverage its relationships with local religious leaders to let Presidential Village residents know that they care about their well-being.

It also offered an opportunity for top police brass to inform residents that neither the babysitter nor the little girl’s mother are residents of Presidential Village, that the police’s investigation is ongoing, and that Monday’s tragedy appears to have been an isolated incident.

“It’s a blessing, and we’re thankful that this baby is alive,” Kimber said at the start of the afternoon’s outreach effort. ​“And we’ll continue to pray for this community.”

The first door Reyes knocked on Thursday was answered by Rick Goodjohn (at left in photo).

Taking a step back and with a face mask wrapped around his nose and mouth, Reyes told Goodjohn that he, his assistant chiefs, and clergy academy graduates were making the rounds to talk with neighbors after Monday’s incident. Reyes told Goodjohn that the little girl is recovering, asked he was feeling, gave him a card, and encouraged him to stay in touch.

“I feel it was so tragic,” Goodjohn said. ​“You never know what someone else is going through.”

McCrae agreed. ​“It takes a village to raise a child,” he said. He said one of the key goals of Thursday’s house visits was to help encourage a sense that people in the community have each other’s backs.

“We’re here for moral support.”

After the group left his door step, Goodjohn said he appreciated the check-in. ​“It doesn’t hurt,” he said. ​“At least the community knows they care.”

As for his assessment of what happened on Monday, he said, ​“People through this pandemic are going a little crazy.”

The next door Sharp and Rodriguez knocked on was answered by Marilyn Santiago (at right in photo, with Rodriguez).

Rodriguez, a licensed clinical social worker, said she would be happy to come back and talk to Santiago and her child or any of her neighbors if they need the support.

Santiago thanked her for the visit, and said how grateful she is that the dumpster hadn’t been emptied before the local maintenance man, Perry Dennis, found her and called the police.

“Probably she needs help,” Santiago said about the woman who put the baby in the dumpster. ​“I was upset. They don’t have to leave the baby like that.”

She added that she previously lived in Fair Haven, and that she didn’t recall ever having a police officer or anyone else come by her place to see how she was doing after something traumatic, like a shooting, happened in the neighborhood. She said Thursday’s visit felt good.

At the apartment door of Xavier Miller (pictured at right), Reyes again went through his pitch of how police are working with clergy to check in on neighbors, how the little girl is doing ok and likely going to make a full recovery, and how Miller and his neighbors should reach out for support if they feel like they need it.

Miller said he’s currently studying psychology at Gateway Community College. He’s in therapy himself.

“It’s our responsibility to take care of each other,” he said. The fact that the police came by to check in is a plus, he said, and he doesn’t hold any ill will towards local cops.

“But I’ve never really depended on the police for anything,” he said. Improving the quality of life at Presidential Gardens ​“starts with the people here.”

Ruth Harris (at left in photo), meanwhile, greeted Jacobson and McCrae with heartfelt enthusiasm when she found out why they were knocking on her door.

“I just feel so heartbroken to know that anyone could be that cruel to anyone, especially an innocent child,” she said. ​“My heart is still split.”

Harris said she won’t go near the dumpster where the baby was found on Monday. Instead, she dropped her trash off today at a dumpster on the other end of the complex. She even banged the side of the dumpster with her hand, she said, just to make sure there was no one or nothing inside.

As for her response to the police and clergy visit, she said, ​“It made my heart feel a little better knowing that they’re coming by and seeing what they can do.”

“It’s not one man’s job,” she continued. ​“It’s not one woman’s job. It’s not the police job. It’s all of our jobs” to make a safe and caring community.”