Separate Shootings Pierce Church, Send Teens To Hospital

Shootings continue and people actually listen to local clergy about safety issues. That's shocking.

It is so dangerous on the street that the idea that non armed social workers take over investigation should go to its final testing place, the shredder or circular file.

Young people being shot because they live without supervision from family, run the streets and live that way.

Criminals that shoot others are should be locked up, key discarded.

Support law enforcement

PJ216, no one is suggesting that civilians respond to situations where shots have been fired or where a person poses a threat to others. But the NHPD routinely respond to cases where mentally ill people act in ways that are disruptive, but not threatening. When I have observed such interactions, the officers have acted humanely. But they receive very little training on how to respond to mentally ill people.

The program in Eugene, Oregon is frequently cited as a model. (Eugene's population is a good bit larger than New Haven's.) It responds to about 17% of police calls with teams of medics and social workers. The teams are only dispatched to calls to the police department's non-emergency line, not 911. During the program's 30+ years of operations, there have been no serious injuries to team members. https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2020-07-06/eugene-oregons-30-year-experiment-with-reimagining-public-safety

It's going to be a long hot summer of violence unless we try to prevent violence. The city needs to provide safe, constructive and positive activities and programs for teens and young adults with teaching them life skills and trade skills to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble and guide them on a different path with responsible caring adult supervision and role models. The anti-violence groups and youth activity groups need to step up and get proactive more. The pandemic recovery funds need to go towards supporting these activities and programs. The churches, synagogues, temples and mosques need to step up and get involved with young people to provide mentors and activities. The fraternities and sororities need to step up and get involved in doing the same. The parents and grandparents need to ask for help from their community if they are having trouble with their young adult or teen who is going astray. The retirees need to step up and volunteer to assist in these programs. The police can do little to prevent violence without the communities help in identifying the persons at risk of committing violence, or those who have committed violence and who may be retaliated against, causing more violence. We are all in this together to prevent gun violence and to help steer our young people away from the activities that lead to violence and crime.

There is no amount of police or city run programs that will stop the violence or even diminish it. Young people are not shooting each other or others because they don't have positive things to do. That's the fallacy used to justify the Q House, massive city feel good programs and spending. What you have is a breakdown in the family unit. Kids are released to the street. There are a lot of single parent homes, a lot of grandparents raising the children of their children. These preachers have been so focused on the wrong things, the political activism, moaning about police and trying to exert governing power. Add the judicial system which fails to hold anybody accountable.

@KevinMcCarthy , any word from Mayor Elicker on the CAHOOTS program? Are we close? Geez that thing is taking forever right?

I don't expect officers to be the Swiss army knife for every social issue that plagues and one community. They are not social workers, mental health counselors, legal advisors or anything else we want to claim that they need training in. New Haven Police officers I agree in particular do an amazing job at dealing with mental health related calls in general. They are responding to these calls every single day amongst everything else they have to respond to.

I just want to know if anyone can answer the question of where is the support from the city administration? Mayor Elicker sounded the alarm for CAHOOTS last summer and yet we still have nothing. Geez, we can't even get a small team of six people, maybe ten just to get ball rolling? Perhaps a small pilot program to see how effective it would be in the Elm City since every city is different.

@HeatherC makes so many valid points. As a youth, me and my friends had a PLETHORA of open gyms to attend to play basketball. We also had a few different school pools to utilize as long as you were able to sign up in time. There were a decent amount of summer camps and the Q-House provided a lot of services.

All this talk from this talk from local government with little action. There's many of us that would donate and volunteer our time to run an open gym or monitor other city buildings that could be used for the youth. Good old New Haven, more talk and less action smh....a true dumpster fire.

Also @Noteworthy you are also very spot on but please don't diminish the efficacy of city run youth programs in particular. They certainly helped myself and other young black and brown young men such as myself, engage in better ways to burn our energy or also just to keep us out of the nonsense so many engage in.

Noteworthy, the vast majority of kids citywide, including those being raised by single parents, are not shooting each other or engaging in other violent crime. There are nearly 30,000 kids under the age of 18.

Elmcitybornandraised, its been a while since I've chatted with Justin. I guess he is sorta busy. More seriously, an earlier NHI article said that the city was in the second phase of creating such a program. https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/campaign_press_conferences/