Melissa Bailey Photo
Mourners at a Daggett Street vigil for Gamble.
City Hall heard Torrence Gamble Jr.‘s name last week — one day before someone shot him to death.
Gamble told a street outreach worker that he wanted to sign up for a new city mentorship effort called “My Brother’s Keeper.” It matches adult volunteers with “at-risk” teens. Officials planned to take him along with other teens to play paintball on Sunday.
Jason Bartlett, the city’s youth director, received an email with Gamble’s name from the outreach worker, who had spoken to a class at Riverside Academy, an alternative high school, about efforts the city’s making to help kids in trouble. Gamble was in the class. He subsequently, on Wednesday, told the outreach worker he wanted to participate in the program.
Bartlett said he got the name the same day as he was beginning to put together a list of My Brother’s Keeper participants. He put Gamble’s name on the list.
Then at 9:38 p.m. Thursday someone pointed a gun at Gamble on Daggett Street and shot him in the head. Gamble was 16, the second teenager shot to death in New Haven in less than two weeks. In fact, the day before his death, Gamble had attended the funeral of the other murdered teen, Taijhon Washington.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Bartlett (pictured) said he sees a lesson for the city as it hustles to react meaningfully to the two murders: That kids, even the most troubled kids, are looking for help. He noted that Gamble had recently left one youth gang, Slut Wave, for another, the Playboys — yet he was also asking to take part in the new city program.
“That tells me this young person was not comfortable with what he was doing, and he wanted a way out,” Bartlett said. “We need to make sure they have somebody in their life to can look to” for that way out.
Gamble died before the new city program could reach him. Officials are hustling to make sure they reach others in time.
They plan publicly to unveil the My Brother’s Keeper program on Wednesday. Also, with the weather warming up and school out next week, officials are trying to get out in front of any continuing gun violence. They plan to keep schools open during spring break, Mayor Toni Harp announced Monday, as well as to put together a “youth night.”
Click here to read a memo Harp sent all city employees Monday outlining steps her administration is taking in the wake of the most recent violence.
As part of My Brother’s Keeper, Bartlett has a list of 16 initial at-risk teens with whom he has matched eight volunteers — cops like Dixwell District Manager Sgt. Sam Brown, firefighters, chief New Haven probation officer Leonard Jahad, city officials like deputy community services chief Jackie James. They’ve each agreed to take on two teens as mentees.
Melissa Bailey Photo
James said the goal is to include 100 young people in the program along with 115 adults. She called her involvement in the new effort “probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life.” (She asked people interested in signing up for the program or donating money to call her at (203) 676‑9478.)
She and other organizers met with some of the targeted young people — who’ve been shot at, or have shot people, or have been through the judicial system — at Stetson Library to hash out ideas for how New Haven could help them live straight. Since then, the initial group has gone bowling and planned other activities. James said she has helped four of the young people find jobs, taking one of them on as an intern.
“They want to go fishing. They want to go camping,” she said. “These are the disengaged, high-risk kids; they want to be engaged.”
She said Gamble was on the list to attend a paintball outing with the group on Sunday. Organizers decided to delay the trip a week after the murder.
On Monday Mayor Toni Harp sent a memo to city government workers asking more of them to enlist so the My Brother’s Keeper list can grow.
She invited employees — and the public at large — to a community meeting Wednesday starting at 4 p.m. at the Elks Lodge on Webster Street. There, she wrote, “parents, community leaders, members of the clergy and educators” will be able to register for the initiative and will participate in a discussion about “how social media impacts violence and non-violence.” She also mentioned plans to have teams of cops and firefighters, educators and street outreach workers and truancy workers, and other community members perform a “canvas” in neighborhoods aimed at reaching at-risk kids and their families.
Any comments from Alder Stratton and the People's Caucus on how plans to slash the budgets and consolidate services may impact some of these initiatives?