nothin Community, Cops Join Hands: “We Can’t Do This… | New Haven Independent

Community, Cops Join Hands: We Can’t Do This Alone”

Thomas Breen photo

Two dozen police officers and anti-gun violence activists rallied together at a prayer vigil commemorating the murder of a West Haven man and the shooting injury of a New Haven top cop.

That vigil took place Friday evening in a vacant lot at the corner of Dixwell Avenue and Henry Street, not far from where 46-year-old West Havener Troy Clark was shot and killed and New Haven Police Capt. Anthony Duff was shot and injured late Monday night.

The rally was organized by the anti-gun violence group Ice the Beef, which has held similar rallies following different shootings in the Dixwell neighborhood earlier this summer, in collaboration with Fearless Builders.

I don’t want to live in a city where this is still common,” said 14-year-old Ice the Beef member Manny Camacho (pictured). He continues to show up to vigil after vigil and rally after rally, he said, to advocate against gun violence.

Every time this happens,” he added, it feels like my obligation” to show up and speak out.

Demethra Telford (pictured), whose 14-year-old son Tyirck Keyes lost his life to gun violence two summers ago, said that she too keeps showing up to these rallies because she sees her life’s work, in the wake of her son’s death, as building community support against gun violence.

I would like to see the village come together,” she said. Enough is enough.”

Uniformed police officers, including some of those who helped save Duff’s life after the shooting, stood shoulder to shoulder with the Ice the Beef activists and neighborhood residents who showed up for the vigil.

We can’t do this alone,” said Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson (pictured above). And we’re glad that you invited us here. We’re gonna be out here day and night to protect you. And we’re gonna be out here day and night until we bring him justice.” He called on anyone who might have any information about the person who killed Clark and injured Duff to contact the city police’s detective bureau at 203 – 946-6304.

It takes the community and it takes the police to come together to find who did something like this,” said Dixwell Alder Jeannette Morrison (pictured). We have to come together. We have to stop this violence. Because this community, we love one another. We love one another, and we support one another.”

Monjur Hossain (pictured), whose family owns the Dixwell Mini Mart near the corner of Dixwell and Henry, said the shooting wasn’t an exception.

Unfortunately, a shooting murder and gunshot injury are all too common for the neighborhood, he said. He was in the store’s kitchen at the time of the shooting, and could hear the gunfire just a few dozen feet away.

This is normal here,” he said.

Earlier this year, he added, he himself was the victim of an attack whereby a violent customer beat him up and chipped one of his teeth. All because he asked the customer not to be rude to his family, Hossain said.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Friday’s prayer vigil.

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