Christopher Peak Photos
Steve Hamm, critics appear before alders for a second time on Wednesday night.
Police accountability activists once again piled on their opposition to local journalist and filmmaker Steve Hamm during his second attempt to make it onto the Civilian Review Board.
Hamm was one of five appointments to the newly created police oversight board whom alders voted down this summer in the face of opposition from police-accountability activists.
Mayor Toni Harp then reappointed Hamm, who lives in Wooster Square and recently made a film about community policing. The city’s leading crusader for the reconstituted review board, Emma Jones, publicly endorsed Hamm’s appointment. Hamm appeared Wednesday night at a second confirmation hearing to try to make his case again. So did his opponents.
During Wednesday night’s 90-minute meeting at City Hall, the Aldermanic Affairs Committee heard a revised pitch from Hamm about his lifelong commitment to social justice causes. Then critics from People Against Police Brutality ripped into Hamm as a “self-important white guy” who is “too close to the police,” in local web developer Chris Garaffa’s words.
Alder Evelyn Rodriguez: Torn over nomination.
Evelyn Rodriguez, the Hill alder who chairs the committee, decided to send Hamm’s nomination to the full board for another up-or-down vote. She didn’t say how she’d be voting.
“A lot of discussion was on the issues of trust and truth, the confidentiality of sensitive information,” Rodriguez summed it up. “The community can not be sure if they can come before him and really open themselves, although he brings tremendous skill in a very important, needed piece to that Civilian Review Board.”
This summer, activists lined up against Hamm for being a “centrist,” for having an inadequate understanding of structural racism, and for being too sympathetic to cops in his latest film .
Hamm responded by calling them “bullies” in an opinion piece in the Independent.
Meanwhile, Emma Jones, who’s been leading the fight for the oversight board since her son was killed by East Haven police in 1997, said Hamm “impressed” her, calling him “a great possibility for the board.”
Jane Scarpellino.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Hamm again tried to pitch his experience as a journalist who’d spent his career seeking out the facts.
But this time, Hamm also stressed his involvement in leftist movements. He said he wrote his high-school thesis on “black liberation,” and he attended a Black Panthers convention in Philadelphia in 1970.
“I am fully aware of the legacy of racism in our country, and I believe that much must be done to address it,” he said. “Clearly I’m an older white man — not, I guess, fitting with some people’s idea of who should be on the board. But I really believe that I have the skills, and I have the passion for it. I work really hard at everything I do, and I am absolutely dedicated to truth and justice.”
Asked by alders, Hamm said he believes city cops treat him differently, as a white man, from people of color. He said he believes that there are “serial abusers” in the department. And he said he “share[s] the outrage” over police misconduct.
Two of Hamm’s Wooster Square neighbors — Anstress Farwell and Jane Scarpellino — said they didn’t think the criticisms were accurate, saying he’s been “involved in the community, in any way he can” since moving back to New Haven three years ago, where he previously covered law enforcement for the Register in the 1980s.
Jamar Jabari.
They were outnumbered by critics from People Against Police Brutality, who said Hamm was “almost patronizing,” “defensive” and “performative at best,” as Maya Leonardo phrased it, or “entitled,” as Jamar Jabari did.
They argued that Hamm missed the point in blaming rogue cops, when they believe that the Civilian Review Board is “trying to bring accountability to a system that is violent and racist,” said Johnny Shively, the director of the Civic Impact Lab and a member of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team.
They focused most of their ire on Hamm’s opinion article. They said he should have reached out to talk about their concerns, rather than going after them online.
“Steve missed the opportunity to learn and gain the trust of the people who criticized him,” said Elizabeth Larkin, a case manager at Youth Continuum, the Grand Avenue shelter for queer youth. “I think this job is about listening to people.”
Hamm said he still believes what he wrote, though he said he’d have gone about it differently if he had another chance.
“After that meeting, I felt I had been a victim of injustice and hypocrisy. My inclination is not to back down from those kinds of things, from unfairness,” he said. Looking back, “I would not have felt differently, but I would have conducted myself differently.”
“It may give an inaccurate impression of me. I’m not a belligerent person; I’m a peacemaker. I have a reputation for being calm, almost judicious,” he added. “That’s the way I would conduct myself on the Civilian Review Board.”
Alder Ernie Santiago questions Hamm.
After the public testimony ended, two alders split over how they were feeling about Hamm’s nomination.
Sal DeCola, Morris Cove’s alder, said he was hearing “the same concerns” that led him to vote against Hamm last time. “It’s going to be difficult to change my vote now,” he said. Ernie Santiago of Fair Haven said he was leaning towards supporting Hamm.
Richard Furlow of Beaver Hills/Amity/West Hills/Beverly Hills, the board’s majority leader, said alders would need to talk the matter over in their closed-door caucus meeting. He said they’d be “very expressive” about their views when the vote comes to the floor.
Having worked with Steve for number of years, city would be lucky to have him - in any capacity.