Thomas Breen photo
New Haven Pride Center's Hope Chávez, Juancarlos Soto, and Laura Boccadoro, after Saturday's bomb threat: "We're not going anywhere."
An emailed bomb threat sent to city police and a New Haven Pride Center employee Saturday afternoon temporarily shuttered a Ninth Square block that was supposed to be hosting a Pride Week-closing celebration — but which had been canceled the day before because of expected inclement weather.
Police searched the LGBTQ+ services nonprofit’s headquarters, found no explosives, and cleared the building, and are now investigating the email threat as a potential hate crime.
New Haven Pride Center Communications Coordinator Laura Boccadoro told the Independent that she received an email at 12:22 p.m. Saturday from someone threatening to blow up the Pride Center’s offices at 84 Orange St.
The email included anti-LGBTQ slurs and conspiracy theories, and identified the Pride Center’s Ninth Square address as the target of the attack.
In a separate phone call, Assistant Police Chief David Zannelli told the Independent that Capt. Rose Dell, who until earlier this month served as the city police department’s spokesperson, also received a bomb threat email against the Pride Center at that exact same time.
He said he activated the department’s emergency response and sent out city police officers and the department’s bomb squad, which includes dogs and robots that help search for explosives. Zannelli said police did not find any bombs, and cleared the building at around 1:40 p.m.
“It is a crime” to send a threatening email like this, even if it was a hoax, Zannelli said. It’s also a “potential hate crime” targeting New Haven’s LGBTQ+ community. Police are investigating to try to find who sent the email.
The threat came at the same time that the Pride Center had been planning on hosting a block party on that very same stretch of the Ninth Square to celebrate the end of a week’s worth of New Haven Pride events, including a drag artist story hour at the Mitchell library in Westville on Wednesday. The Pride Center had called off Saturday’s block party on Friday afternoon, however, in anticipation of stormy weather forecast for Saturday.
Despite this threat, Pride Center Executive Director Juancarlos Soto said on Saturday afternoon, the longstanding LGBTQ+ services nonprofit plans to “keep fighting and will continue to be a beacon of light and hope.”
He said the Pride Center “saves lives” by providing food, clothing, shelter, hygiene products, and so many other services, for New Haven’s LGBTQ+ community and for anyone else in need of such support. That won’t be changing anytime soon.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said, standing alongside Boccadoro and Pride Center Board Co-President Hope Chávez in the Pride Center’s basement offices Saturday after police had given the all clear and had left the building.
Chávez said Saturday’s threat was a reminder that threats of violence against LGBTQ+ people don’t just take place in small towns or more remote parts of the country. They can take place even here, in a relatively inclusive and welcoming city like New Haven.
“We’re happy we’re safe,” Boccadoro said. But the bomb threat — the first that Boccadoro and Soto could remember receiving during their tenures at the Pride Center — was scary nonetheless.
The threat won’t be driving the Pride Center away. Quite the opposite. “There’s something really powerful in visibility,” she said. Which is what the Pride Center plans to continue to be, including at a rescheduled Pride Week block party to take place in October.
The Pride Center posted about the threat on Facebook and Instagram later on Saturday afternoon. “While it is disheartening to witness such acts of hatred, it serves as a stark reminder that LGBTQ+ individuals across the country still face adversity and discrimination every day,” that social media post reads in part. “However, let this be a testament to our resilience and strength. We refuse to be consumed by fear; instead, we choose to stand taller, united in our purpose.”
On Monday afternoon, Soto and Mayor Justin Elicker issued a joint statement in an email press release about Saturday’s bomb threat. That joint statement reads in full:
“New Haven is a welcoming and inclusive city where LGBTQ+ individuals can experience acceptance and belonging.
“While this act of hate is a stark reminder that LGBTQ+ individuals face adversity and discrimination every day, it only deepens our resolve to be a city that embraces all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
“An attack on the New Haven Pride Center is an attack on all of us, and we stand united and resolved towards building a city that is a beacon of belonging, love and hope for the LGBTQ+ community.
“The pride flag will continue to be raised on the New Haven Green until the New Haven Pride Block Party is rescheduled, and we look forward to joining our fellow New Haven residents in coming together to celebrate New Haven’s LGBTQ+ community.
“We’re also confident the New Haven Police Department, working with other law enforcement partners, will do everything they can to identify the individual who committed this act and hold them accountable for their actions.”
Appreciate Asst. Chief Zannelli’s response. What more can the City of New Haven and New Haven Public Schools be doing all the time to further safeguard our LGBTQ community? How can they further invest in helping LGBTQ individuals to live healthy, open, safe, and meaningful lives?? Grateful for the relentless courage of the Pride Center leadership, AND I want to live in a city where the Pride Center doesn’t need courage to survive and thrive.