SoHU Gets A Foot Cop

When a white car came speeding down Eld Street, Officer Scott Shumway stepped cautiously into the street and caught the driver’s eye.

The driver slowed down, bringing the car to a stop just beyond a truck from the city Department of Transportation, Transit and Parking. Walking slowly, Shumway approached the car, walking down the middle of Eld as the car slowed. He lowered his face to the driver’s side window.

“This is a residential district, and you were going kind of fast,” Shumway said. The driver nodded, bobbing his head up and down.

“Sorry,” the driver said.

Shumway asked the driver to remember to go a little slower down the side streets the came off State. Then he backed away from the window and sent the driver on his way. As the car rolled down Eld at a slower clip, Shumway redirected his attention to the right side of the street, where city employee Kevin Rose was lifting a rusted, fallen street sign into the back of the transportation truck.

“How are you doing today?” Shumway asked. ​“And what happened here?”

Shumway was walking East Rock’s South of Humphrey (SoHu) neighborhood as a District 7 ​“quality of life” officer, a relatively new position that comes with an equally new SoHu walking beat. Just three weeks old, the beat stretches from Bradley Street to Willow between Orange and State Streets.

In a policing district that covers both East Rock and Newhallville, that area has seen a rise in smash-and-grab-style vehicular break-ins, package thefts, and and home invasions in the last three months.

While motor vehicle stops by police are way up — almost 500 percent, with over 150 stops this year compared to a total of 26 in 2016 — new walking beats like Shumway’s are intended to stop crime before it happens and respond to it promptly when it does. They’re also part of a continued community policing effort to have neighbors know ​“their” officers, said District 7 top cop Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur. He implemented the SoHu beat three weeks ago after observing how crime varied from block to block in that section of East Rock. He said he is hoping that it will help cut down crime as potential criminals see cops out walking the neighborhood and stopping to say hello or exchange a few words with people.

“I operate under the model of neighborhood-specific policing,” Abdussabur said. ​“What I’ve learned is as you move from different groups of streets or blocks, each of them want to be policed differently. You find yourself asking: how do I specifically address the cultures of those neighborhoods? SoHu is an example of that culture. Cedar Hill is the same thing. I felt that having a quality of life officer gives those communities a better point of contact … and it gives me the ability to see the community through a different set of eyes.”

Shumway spent a sunny Friday afternoon not just scanning porches, half-cracked doorways, and parked cars, but giving people a jovial ​“Hello!,” ​“How are you today,” or quip about the humid weather (“It might be hot, but it’s better than 140 degrees at the last job”). Between checking on a bike that looked unlocked on an unattended porch (it in fact had a U‑Lock, it was just obscured) and glancing in on tables where packages sat unattended, he smiled at those who passed, and found that most of them smiled back.

The head of a cops-meet-books-meet-kids literacy initiative with Read to Grow in Newhallville, Shumway said he is still getting to know the SoHu area. He still feels more comfortable in Newhallville, where he knows the community and has become a sort of fixture.

On warm days, when diners outside Christopher Martin’s smile and say a quick ​“hello” or introduce their dogs, the SoHu beat ​“isn’t so bad,” Shumway added. Walking down Clark Street from Orange, he chatted with postal worker Dave Mendillo, who has been doing his route for 30 years without ever seeing police presence in the area. Before he had worked in East Rock, Mendillo said, he had grown up there, just a few streets over from where he was dropping off packages. Shumway held out his hand. ​“I’m Scott,” he said.

A few 20-somethings with their backpacks walked by, offering timid smiles as Shumway said hi to them, and continued down the street. Passing beneath a canopy of heavy, dark pink cherry blossoms, he stopped to take a deep whiff. He knew he had about a week until his allergies exploded, he said, and he was going to savor it. 

As Shumway extolled the values of Flonase, he said that most of the passers-by in SoHu seem pleasant, comforted by the sight of a cop, especially on the blocks where there has been a sizable increase in crime. If Shumway initiates with a quick hi — and he almost always does — sometimes folks stick around to chat for a moment, or give him news about the neighborhood that may not have made it to the police (for instance, some stolen packages aren’t reported, because Amazon’s package insurance is so good that they just re-send the item, and the theft victim doesn’t file a complaint).

Just past Pearl Street back on Orange, Bernard Soliwoda stopped to chat as his grandson, Marek, rolled by on his tricycle. Shumway lauded the tricycle’s elaborate speedometer design. Marek gestured to his Batman-themed shirt. ​“It’s a motorcycle!” he said.

Shumway turned to chat with Bernard for a moment, learning that the two were on a neighborhood stroll. Marek motioned that it was time for them to go, putting one foot on a black pedal. He grinned and waved goodbye to Shumway. 

“That’s the best part of the job,” he said. 

A Complicated Approach To Crime

Shumway isn’t alone in the new endeavor — cops Michael Calabro and Omar Thomas are quality of life officers for the district’s B and C squads. Reporting back to Abdussabur, they keep their eyes out for other ​“quality of life issues” — excess garbage or illegally dumped material, suspicious or abandoned vehicles, illicit activity in nearby East Rock Park. They leave literature on cars that have valuable items still visible in the front or back seats, warning drivers that expensive items might get stolen.

Sometimes, Shumway said, a beat that deals so much with small larcenies can be exhausting. ​“Because the courts are lenient, someone could rob nine or ten cars, be caught for it, and be out here the following day doing it again,” he said. He’s also looking out for crimes that come in patterns — thieves will stick to a few blocks until they notice a police presence there, and then move two or three blocks in either direction. Then they’ll return, and the cycle will keep going as long as it’s warm enough to be outside late into the night. (While some larcenies take place in the winter, spring and summer are much more common, he said.)

As Shumway walked up and back down Bradley, Eld, Clark, and Humphrey, around five young people, all with their earbuds in, passed him without saying hello or looking up. He doesn’t usually stop them to say something about it. ​“If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it,” he said. He recalled working downtown during Yale’s move-in day, when students ​“who have never lived in a city” walked around glued to their phones.

Abdussabur said he believes the system will make a difference — if the New Haven Police Department doesn’t keep reassigning officers from SoHu to other areas in the district. Paired with WhatsApp chat features for East Rock and Cedar Hill, he called the new quality of life officers and walking beats ​“force multipliers” for SoHu.

“That’s sustainable policing,” he said.