Cops & ​“Ballers” Bridge Blue Divide

Darcel Reddick showed up to Edgewood Park to play basketball, just as he’s been doing for the past 22 years.

What he didn’t know was that this time he’d get a chance to test his shooting, dribbling, and rebounding skills against city police officers and neighbors alike as part of an annual tournament designed to blur the boundaries between cops and the community.

Reddick was one of around 50 people to play in Thursday afternoon’s ​“Cops & Ballers” tournament, the third annual iteration of an afternoon-long series of three-on-three basketball games that feature city police officers playing side by side with some of New Haven’s most talented young athletes.

This year’s contest was organized by Yale Police Department community engagement officers Martin Parker and Martha Cedeno-Ross in collaboration with New Haven Police Department Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson.

The event was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the Edgewood Park basketball court. Parker, Cedeno-Ross, and Jacobson moved the tournament to the YMCA on Howe Street as an afternoon drizzle turned into a torrential downpour half an hour before the first games were set to start.

Before the group relocated downtown and indoors, Reddick stumbled upon them setting up. He hadn’t known about the tournament. He just plays a lot of basketball on that Westville court, and has done so since 1997, when he first moved to New Haven.

“It’s all love and respect out here,” the 31-year-old Wallingford School District paraprofessional, Wilbur Cross graduate, and former CT Select semi-professional basketball player said about why he comes back over and over to the courts. ​“This court is neutral territory.” No gangs fight here. Everyone shows respect and plays hard.

When he learned that the Cops & Ballers tournament was that same day, he signed right up. There are good cops and bad cops, he said, just as there are good people and bad people in all wakes of life. He said his approach to interacting with the police is the same as how he interacts with anyone else: with respect, and with expectations of the same.

Down at the YMCA, Reddick joined dozens of other officers and fellow basketball players on the second-floor court. Parker and Jacobson divided attendees into teams based around police district and a few other geographic groupings, handing out brightly colored T‑shirt uniforms as volunteer referees David Pittman and Tyrone Grant explained the rules.

Three on three. Games to 11. No longer than 8 minutes each. Three fouls and you’re out. And have a good time. ​“We ain’t here for the airballs,” Grant said with a smile. ​“We’re here to have fun.”

Sixteen-year-old Career High School junior Jose Guzman was one such ​“baller” to turn out Thursday. He too learned about the tournament by accident out at the Edgewood Park basketball court earlier in the day. He had come to shoot some hoops, and had run into Parker and the other officers setting up.

“I was frying cops,” Guzman recalled fondly about participating in this very tournament two years ago. ​“Only one of them was really good.” Now on the varsity team at Career, he was ready to show off his new skills …

… which were on full display as he seamlessly wove through the defense on his way to a lay up in the middle of his first game.

One of the sharpest shooters on the court Thursday was Chris Cagle (at right in photo), the assistant basketball coach at Gateway Community College and a former member of two national championship winning Hillhouse High School basketball teams.

“It’s a good chance for people in the community and law enforcement to bond,” Cagle said about the tournament, ​“over something we both love: Basketball.”

Cagle’s Gateway team ultimately took home the top prize Thursday evening, besting Newhallvile’s District 7 team in the final game.

Parker said his motivation for helping organize and lead Thursday’s event came from the same mission he tries to realize every day as a full-time community engagement officer for Yale’s PD: to bridge the divide between cops and the community, to talk to and listen to and get to know residents, and to let them do the same with him.

During most interactions between law enforcement and civilians, he said, there’s a power imbalance in favor of the officer. That’s not always the best for building trust and community.

“This is an equal playing field,” he said about the tournament. Some players are better than others. But cops and residents are on the same teams, dribbling and passing and shooting side by side. Playing together. ​“You can’t replicate that.”