Lucy Gellman/ New Haven Arts Photo
Steve Hamm, at left, with cops and community activist Barbara Fair at a recent panel discussion about his film on community policing.
(Opinion) Last evening, I attended a hearing and answered questions put to me by members of the board of alders. The purpose of the meeting was to consider the mayor’s appointees to the Civilian Review Board.
The meeting lasted 5 1/2 hours, partly because the alders had a sizable list of questions that they asked all of the appointees and partly because numerous members of the People Against Police Brutality group spoke at length and repeatedly. They criticized the process of selecting the board members and they spoke in favor of or against particular candidates. Wooster Square Community Management Team members Caroline Smith and Anstress Farwell also spoke against the process — criticizing it for a lack of clarity and transparency.
I was one of the candidates the Police Brutality group spoke out against.
Kerry Ellington, who heads the group, said that I was unqualified for the CRB because I didn’t aknowledge “structural racism.” That’s true. None of the other candidates used that terminology, either. I’m not sure what it means. I did talk briefly about the fact of racism in policing. I recognize institutional racism in our society. I’m an advocate of strong affirmative action programs to address it.
Several members of the group said I was not experienced enough to be on the board. I think they meant that I don’t have the lived experience of being black and subject to improper treatment by police. That’s true, but it’s also true of the other four white people who were appointed by the mayor. The group didn’t call them out for being white.
One woman said I should be disqualified from the service on the board because I’m a “centrist.” She was referring, I believe, to the fact that I told the alders that the work of the board should be a search for truth and justice based on facts. None of the other appointees said anything about facts and truth being important.
My takeaway from this experience is that the members of the Police Brutality group want people on the board who are prejudiced against the police and determined to punish them — no matter the facts of a particular case.
Having to listen to people saying negative things about you in a public forum is no fun, but it didn’t discourage me from pursuing this service. The CRB should be about achieving justice — mainly for complainants, but also it must be fair for police. Just because you’re a police officer doesn’t mean you should be punished because other police officers are racist or mistreat people. Your behavior should be judged on its own merits. So I think it’s important to have my voice and judgment on the CRB — to stand strongly for facts and fairness.
In my view, the members of the Police Brutality group speak for themselves and each other. They can’t rightly claim to speak for “the community.”
I have a feeling that I and another candidate, a former cop, will be voted down by the committee because of the opposition to us from the Police Brutality group. I don’t regret having volunteered to serve the city on this committee, but I do regret that we live in a society where people who claim they promote justice are actually pressing for injustice, and who claim they are fighting prejudice actually insist on it.
Steve Hamm, a retired journalist who lives in Wooster Square, is a documentary filmmaker whose latest work, Shift Change, explores community policing in New Haven You can listen to interviews with him below about the film and about policing.
sounds like the goal of this board is retaliation rather than justice