At a meeting with neighbors of his armed Edgewood Park patrol, Eliezer Greer (pictured) came under fire from Aldermanic President Carl Goldfield for inciting “paranoia” and making the streets less safe. The group just wanted to “wake people up,” not shoot them, responded the patrol organizer.
Members of the Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hill Management Team called the meeting Tuesday with one sole topic: The use of guns by Greer’s Edgewood Park Defense Patrol, a team of 18 people who patrol the streets of the Edgewood area in pairs in evening hours. In a group of roughly 40 people gathered to discuss the matter, neighbors supported Greer’s concern over a spike in shootings and robberies, but the vast majority said they did not feel safer with more guns on the street.
Goldfield took Greer to task over his rationale for packing heat. The patrol was formed shortly after Rabbi Dov Greer, Eliezer’s brother and the son of Rabbi Daniel Greer, was assaulted. The family runs a politically influential yeshiva which has helped stabilize and improve its swath of the Edgewood neighborhood.
Alderman Goldfield, who represents nearby Beaver Hills, said he understood the reaction: “If something happened to someone in my family, I’d want to get a hold of that person and rip them apart.” But the use of guns just wasn’t wise, he said. “It strikes me that either you get shot, or someone shoots you. It’s unclear to me why you think a gun’s going to get you where you want to be.”
Using a firearm against someone in self-defense is always a “murky situation,” one that shouldn’t be invited by the use of armed patrols, argued Goldfield.
Plus, you’re causing panic, Goldfield told Greer. A rumor is floating around some parts of the African-American community that the kid who was shot in Edgewood Park was taken there and shot up by the Greer’s patrol, said Goldfield. While all in the room agreed the story was a wild, false rumor, Goldfield cited it as evidence that the patrols are inciting “paranoia,” apparently with a racial thrust.
In response to the rumor, Greer noted his patrols are “multiracial”.
And the rationale behind the weapons? If the group had just been some guys “riding around the block” unarmed, “we would not have raised the level of discussion and seriousness and reflection about the question of crime in New Haven,” said Greer. “We wanted to wake people up — That’s the point of this. There’s no other motive.”
“OK,” responded Goldfield, sitting across from Greer at a large table in the Whalley Avenue police substation, “so the cry’s out there. Everyone’s woken up. OK, so now you’ve got it, what’s your point of carrying guns?”
Greer tried to steer the conversation back to the “dead” state of community policing, which he attributes to Police Chief Cisco Ortiz. “We haven’t seen an appropriate response from the chief.”
While Greer had previously maintained the group would disarm on the condition that the chief step down, he expanded that offer: “If the chief wakes up one day” and decides to focus on community policing, then the group would have achieved its goal, Greer said. That effect would have to be seen in the streets, with restored walking and bicycling beats like in days past, Greer said.
How many bicycle cops ride through the Edgewood neighborhood these days? None, according to Sgt. Steve Shea, the area’s district manager. “Due to reassignment, the bike patrol has not been as active as it was.”
Other neighbors who spoke agreed they want to see more patrols. Edgewood Alderwoman Liz McCormack thanked the Greers for adding a visible presence to the streets, but didn’t mention the guns. One woman in the group commended the Greers’ work and asked that they and the Guardian Angels extend their patrol onto the other side of Whalley Ave, on Winthrop.
Steps Forward
The two-hour meeting, run by Charlie Pillsbury from Community Mediation, concluded with a plea from WEB management team members to be part of the conversation alongside Greer, pressuring City Hall and the police department for more resources.
Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, who oversees the police department, rejected the “anger focused at somebody, in this case the chief.” He condemned creating armed patrols in response to “one incident.” He mentioned the city would be bringing in a new class of recruits to add to patrols, and rolling out the Street Outreach Workers program to reach at-risk kids.
The Greers maintain the patrols aren’t in response to one assault, but to years of decline in community policing and an increase in shootings. At a press conference Friday, Daniel Greer said he refused to continue talks with the chief. “We talked to him until we were blue in the face!”
“If you’ve talked until you’re blue in the face, let us talk,” said Nadine Herring of Winthrop Avenue. While she condemns the use of guns, she said, she sought to ally with Greer to present a united front to City Hall. “Whether you agree or disagree,” she said, “he got the attention to this neighborhood, which is what it needed.”
Neighbors agreed to invite the chief to a meeting at the substation on July 10.
I'm sorry but this is great: "It strikes me that either you get shot, or someone shoots you."
Hmmm.....
I didn't know that carrying a gun would either get me shot or GET ME SHOT.
I'm pretty sure that the mugger with the gun is more likely to shoot me than I am. Well, maybe if I'm really sad :(
I'm really tired of this irrational gun fear.
And whats with the "paranoia?"
White people make the "African-American" community paranoid? I'll try harder to not be so white. Oh but the EPDP is "multicultural?" Well, we'll just ignore that. It doesn't fit the fear model. If rumors and lies are making them paranoid perhaps they should stop buying into rumors and lies? Just a thought.
It seems like this whole meeting was just a bunch of fearful people trying to get Greer to at least say they would no longer carry guns. How about Greer just says they will no longer exist as the EPDP? Sure, they'll still walk every night armed as is their Constitutional right but the semantics will make all the paranoids feel better.
Take me for instance. I walk everywhere with a pistol. Supermarkets, malls, downtown, parks, all over the state, except where specifically prohibited by law, at all hours of the day and I have yet to encounter an irrational mob of paranoid residents. If they didn't announce it then the next to mug one of them would be unaware he was about to be shot. Perhaps it should be that way. Rather than avoid the clearly marked and defined EPDP they'd be forced to assume more and more people in general were arming themselves. After a few bodies pile up the message might get across. Then, criminals aren't terribly bright.
Just tell them what they want to hear if it will shut them up. If they haven't educated themselves by now they won't. They love to fear what they don't understand and have no experience with whatsoever. The fear gives them comfort. The ignorance gives them peace. The fastest route to bliss is to just look the other way. If it's all around you find a scapegoat and attack. Greer is the scapegoat. Sure he brought attention to the problem but since the problem is far to complex to fix the focus landed square on him and the oh so evil gun.