Thomas Breen Photo
Chief Reyes: “We need to stop this before it gets worse.”
A “perfect storm” has unleashed New Haven’s worst street violence since 2011 — and the police urgently need the public’s help to make the streets safer.
Top cops issued that appeal Monday afternoon during a press conference on the steps of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
They spoke at the end of a brutal four-day stretch, with eight people shot around town, one fatally. Five people were shot within 24 hours alone.
New Haven hasn’t seen this level of harm since a 2011 peak, since which time shootings and other violent crime rates have plummeted by 50 percent or more.
“We’re dealing with a perfect storm between certain inmates being released due to Covid-19, people being cooped up due to Covid-19, unemployment due to Covid, and society’s attitude towards the police,” said Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson (pictured).
“Officers are responding to shooting scenes and attempting to save lives are being met with disdain, hate, and people cursing at them,” he stated. (Read about once such case here.)
“We need to support the community, and the community needs to support the police.”
“Join us to stop this violence. We are your police department. Please support your officers. Please support the hard work they do every single day,” Chief Otoniel Reyes implored the public. “We need to stop this before it gets worse.”
Between Thursday and late Sunday night into Monday morning alone, the city saw eight people shot, one fatally. (Details appear below in this story.) New Haven has had 54 nonfatal shootings this year, compared to 37 at this point in 2019 (when numbers were starting to climb). It has had nine homicides, compared to six at this point last year.
And robberies, which had steadily declined for years, have leaped 25 percent, hitting neighborhoods all through the city.
The shootings have stemmed from a variety of disputes, ranging from domestic arguments, fights over stolen ATVs and dirt bikes, and “old scores” being settled. In most cases shooters hit intended targets. In a few others, including the shooting death of 19-year-old Kiana Brown in her sleep, people uninvolved in the disputes were struck, according to Jacobson.
Jacobson and Reyes identified numerous factors contributing to the recent storm:
• People getting restless after months cooped up in the Covid-19 pandemic, and turning to gun violence.
• People being released from prison because of Covid-19-related health concerns and resuming violence; five recent shootings are believed to involve people in that category, according to Jacobson.
• Covid-19 restrictions have prevented police “partners” in agencies like state parole and probation from working on prevention activities like visits to people involved in potential trouble.
• A shortage of 100 cops due to budget cuts and retirements, leaving the department unable to staff walking beats or conduct preventive work rather than simply responding to 911 calls.
• A precipitous drop in public cooperation in the wake of national and local anti-police protests stemming from a Minneapolis police officer’s killing of George Floyd.
Chief Reyes (left) at presser with Asst. Chiefs Karl Jacobson, Renee Dominguez.
Police have received far fewer tips and eyewitness statements from the public in recent crimes as a result, Jacobson said.
He described one witness to a robbery case telling an officer, “I don’t want to tell you what the description of the person was because I don’t want you to hurt the suspects.”
“We’re not here to hurt people. We’re here to save people,” Jacobson said.
Reyes noted that the city would have had 11 homicides this year, not nine, if Officer Gregory Dash had not applied a tourniquet to save the life of a victim at the scene of a July 3 shooting, and Sgt. Chris Cameron and Officers Jacob Sosik and Alex Carr hadn’t done the same on June 27. Dash has in particular made a practice of saving lives with this training. (Read about that here and here.)
“Police save lives. Officers are important to the safety of the city,” Reyes declared.
He said the department is eager to participate in the community-wide reexamination of how policing works, and which kinds of calls are better handled by other professionals. He said the department is eager to continue working toward improving relationships with the community and addressing problems.
But he also made an emotional appeal for the public to understand the important work his officers are doing right now and the pressures they face.
“In this climate, it’s very easy for our officers to be concerned about being proactive. Make no bones about it: They are. It’s very difficult to go out there and do your job as a police officer when the world is attacking you and you can’t do anything right. One moment, you’re a hero of Covid. The next minute something happens a 1,000 miles away, and you’re dealing with the repercussions of a horrible act of an individual,” Reyes said.
“We are not Minnesota. We are New Haven. Our officers are heroes. Our officers are doing life-saving work every day. They need support.
“We’re not Officer [Derek] Chauvin. We’re Officer Dash. We’re Sgt. Cameron.”
Reyes was asked if police have made any arrests in the rash of shootings over the past few weeks. He said they’ve so far made a few gun seizures and arrests related to the violence and are “making some headway” on the homicides.
He asked people with any information about crimes to call the department tip line at 1 – 866-888‑8477.
Meares: Covid restrictions are hurting many cities in addressing crime.
Newly confirmed Police Commissioner Tracey Meares, a member of President Obama’s task force on improving policing, noted that New Haven is not alone in wrestling with increased crime since the onset of Covid-19.
“I am aware of a recent increase in violence in big cities across the country — especially those suffering the ravages of the pandemic — such as Chicago, Baltimore and Atlanta,” Meares said.
“I’d hoped Covid-related reasons would provide New Haven some protection, as Connecticut is doing so much better than most states, but it is also true that the best strategies that we can use to quell violence are especially difficult to implement in the best way because of the kinds of things we have to do, such as social distancing to keep our Covid numbers down.”
Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers attributed the upsurge in violence to “the lack of real economic opportunities” in the community. She called for “open conversation” about how to address the challenge.
“The hardest-hit communities with violence are also the communities that have been redlined, have highest rates of unemployment, highest incarceration rates, highest high school instability and highest food insecurity,” she told the Independent. “These are all symptoms that contribute to a poor functioning community. Until we invest and change the outcomes of the poorest residents, violence will unfortunately continue to happen.”
Community “Outrage” Sought
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Alder Marks (addressing a recent rally): “Stop the violence!”
Community members reacted to the press conference in real time while watching it on the Independent’s Facebook Live page — reflecting the charged social atmosphere surrounding policing at the moment.
“We beyond the blame game these killers must be stop no matter who they are if they attack one bee they get the hive,” community anti-violence organizer Raymond Wallace wrote in one comment. “They out here killing babies now if that not enough outrage the community to do something then we are lost and our grand kids are doomed.”
Wrote Officer Jay Bandy: “I’m confused…do people want the police out there solving crime or do they not? Everyday it’s different. One day they want police abolished. The next they are blaming them for the uptick in crime…very confusing society.”
“Police are not hero’s, they are public servants with an expectation of professionalism. You don’t get to be a hero by doing your job. A civilian running into a burning house to save life without being paid, that person is a hero,” argued anti-brutality activist Harvey Fair.
“It appears the handcuffs are now on the very ones who could protect us,” wrote Donna Luisa.
Added Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks: “At the end of the day Black on Black crime is not good. Stop the Violence! NHPD IN A SAFE WAY.”
24 Hours, 4 Shootings
The four latest shootings, claiming five victims, occurred within 24 hours.
Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Capt. Anthony Duff.
The first occurred at Sunday at 1:52 a.m., at the Best Way Inn at 45 Pond Lily Avenue. Someone shot a woman in the leg; Duff called the injury non-life-threatening.
Next, emergency responders found a 41-year-old East Haven man shot in the torso in Blake Rink’s rear parking lot on State Street. The man is in the hospital in critical condition. The shooting is believed to have involved a robbery.
At 11:55 p.m., someone shot a 30-year-old man in the chest, and someone shot a 26-year-old man several times in the lower torso, outside a home on Greenwich Avenue between Third and Fourth streets. Bullets struck multiple parked vehicles as well. “Detectives believe several gunmen fled in a white car that matches an unoccupied vehicle found just before 2 a.m. when New Haven Fire extinguished a suspicious auto fire on Huntington Road,” Duff wrote in a release.
The fourth shooting occurred early Monday. At 12:55 a.m., a 27-year-old man walked into the Yale New Haven Hospital St. Raphael Campus emergency room with a gunshot wound to the pelvic area after, he said, having been shot at Shelton Avenue near Read Street. “A short time later, a 29 year old pistol permit holder called 911 to report he had discharged his handgun during an attempted robbery at Shelton Avenue and Read Street. The New Haven man is cooperating with the ongoing investigation,” Duff wrote.
The four incidents capped a busy week of shootings.
On Friday night, someone was shot to death (read about that here), and, in a separate incident, a bullet grazed the head of a 45-year-old woman sitting on her Quinnipiac Avenue front porch. “Investigators learned the woman was sitting on her front porch when a gunman in the roadway fired multiple times at the residence,” Duff wrote. He described her wound as non-threatening.
Quinnipiac Avenue was also the site of a shooting Thursday of 20-year-old man, in the ankle, in a parking lot, around 2:23 a.m.
Last Monday, an 18-year-old Naugatuck woman riding in a car on Grand Avenue was shot in the head around 1 a.m. by someone who was on foot and fired into the vehicle, then fled.
The police department did not report any shootings on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I have been cooped up and isolated and depressed and bored. I haven't thought about turning to crime or gun violence. Please don't characterize this as "normal" response to the pandemic. And did anybody think that those felons let out of prison were just going to go home and be good? No- they are reestablishing turf, settling scores, making money by illegal means. People got what they wanted. Felons are out and safe at home and the rest of us are NOT safer at home. Since when do the needs of the minority criminal folks outweigh the needs of the majority of law-abiding people