Sam Gurwitt Photo
Neighbors at Sunday’s initial gathering.
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Reyes at Wednesday meeting.
Police Chief Otoniel Reyes told 100 Beaver Hills residents worried about an uptick in violence not to go out patrolling the neighborhood themselves, but instead to keep pushing his department to do better.
He gave that message to over 100 Beaver Hills residents Wednesday evening as he and other city officials began a conversation with neighbors outraged over recent violent crime.
In the two-and-a-half-hour Zoom meeting, which at many points had over 100 attendees, Reyes and Mayor Justin Elicker stressed how important it is for residents to keep reporting crimes, and to report when they feel the department is not providing adequate service.
On Sunday, residents had gathered at the corner of Norton Parkway and Goffe Terrace to talk about the uptick in crime in their neighborhood. Many said there need to be more police officers patrolling the area to deter crime, and they wanted to call attention to the issue. Wednesday night, they got the audience of city officials they said they wanted.
Beaver Hills has both a sizable Black community and a large and growing Orthodox Jewish community affiliated with Congregation Chabad Lubavitch. Many of the residents who showed up Sunday were members of the neighborhood’s Jewish community. Again on Wednesday again, most of the residents who spoke up were Jewish.
Crime seems to be increasing in the neighborhood, with more and more car thefts, garage thefts, and worse, said resident Mendy Katz, who organized the meeting. “Now there’s gunshots flying, bullets flying, almost every week, so it seems like it’s escalating.”
Reyes and top Beaver Hills cop Lt. John Healy presented the crime statistics for the neighborhood. Though overall crime appears to have decreased, as it has in the rest of the city, Beaver Hills has seen an uptick in violence. Most recently, Healy said, there was a shooting on Oct. 16. There were also gunshots in the neighborhood on the two preceding days.
So far this year, the department has detected 18 shooting incidents in the police district that includes Beaver Hills. There were only seven by this time last year. Robberies with a firearm have also increased significantly since last year.
To the residents at Wednesday’s meeting, the fact that there have been more shootings was not news.
Sam Gurwitt Photo
“I’ve never experienced the amount of blatant violence that we have found ourselves in,” said resident Salwa Abdussabur (pictured). “I don’t even feel like I can go out into the back of my mom’s studio and make music because I hear gunshots not too far down the street.”
At the beginning of the meeting, Katz asked what the neighborhood could do to help police solve the problem.
“What can we do to try to safeguard ourselves and help the police department do their job?” he asked. He used to organize a patrol with neighbors, he said. Should he start doing that again?
The answer emerged over a series of responses, but came down to: That’s too dangerous. Help us do better keeping you safe.
Reyes and Elicker reiterated one point repeatedly: whenever there is an incident, report it. Even if the police don’t actually solve every car break-in or garage theft, the more incidents are reported, the better able they are to conduct investigations because oftentimes small crimes are linked.
As residents told Reyes and Elicker throughout the meeting, though, reporting incidents does not always feel productive. Laib Vail told a story about a time his car was stolen and he reported the incident. He said he didn’t get an answer at first. He then got footage and information to share with police, and was told the police couldn’t do anything, he said.
Another resident said he was hit by a car while biking, and when he called the police, it took weeks for the report to be correct. He said eventually he talked to Healy, who fixed the problem.
Some residents on the call said their car or garage is broken into multiple times a year. Oftentimes they don’t report it because it doesn’t feel like anything will happen. Or they don’t want to wait for hours on the phone for an officer to take the case.
Alex Taylor said she hates calling the non-emergency number because it feels “like you’re bothering them.”
“Do not stop calling the police,” Reyes said, addressing the assertion many residents made that it sometimes feels futile. “Don’t give up if you have a negative experience. Bring it up the chain of command.” He said that if residents feel their concerns are not addressed, or they don’t get a response, they should tell Lt. Healy, or Reyes himself.
Even when reporting the crime goes well and the department ends up making an arrest, it still doesn’t seem to solve the problem, one resident pointed out. Moti Sandman said that someone recently broke into Congregation Chabad Lubavitch, the Norton Street shul which he serves as president. The police ended up arresting the alleged perpetrator Friday evening, but he made bail and was released the next day. Sunday morning, he tried to break in again.
If that’s the best-case scenario, asked Abe Vail, “why would anyone take the time to make the report?”
Reyes paused before answering that question.
“The system does work. Is it perfect? It’s not,” he replied. But residents cannot give up on it. It’s frustrating for police officers too when they arrest someone and then they’re back on the street committing the same crime two days later, he said, but it’s important not to just give up on working toward fixing the problem because of the flaws in the system.
Engaging with the department and bringing forth concerns is the first step in solving the problems in the neighborhood. But having residents conduct their own patrols is not.
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Moti Sandman and Mendy Katz.
After Katz brought up the idea at the beginning of the meeting, two other residents asked about it as well. Finally, at Elicker’s nudging, Reyes addressed it.
He said the department does not want to discourage residents from taking an active role in their communities. “But we want to discourage you from putting yourself in situations that could put you at greater risk,” he said.
Instead, he said, residents should find other ways to engage with their community, and with the department.
“I think it starts with us acting like a community,” he said. “Taking part in the management team. Taking part in the resources that are available.” And, of course, calling meetings with city officials. “This is the way it starts,” he said. “We need to hear these things. We need to hear that we’re not being as responsive.”
347, From 430
Throughout the meeting, it became clear that residents do not feel the police are present enough, or responsive enough, and they want more.
“A lot of people in the community feel we’ve been speaking about these things and complaining about these things and we don’t see a lot of results,” said Abraham Meer.
But policing the neighborhood more, and responding faster, is not simple.
Right now, Reyes said, the department has 347 cops. Of those, 22 are still in the academy. Another dozen are out injured. The department has historically had many more.
In the past 10 – 15 years, he said, the department has averaged 420 – 430 officers. New Haven police subscribes to community policing, he said. In order to do it right, they need more officers. Due to budget constraints, the city cut 23 vacant positions from the police department in the current city budget.
Though meeting the demands for more active engagement with the police that come from neighborhoods like Beaver Hills might require a larger force, more officers do not seem to be in the cards.
“We do not have that luxury unless people are willing to pay more taxes,” said Elicker after hearing how many more officers the city used to have. “Everyone wants more beat cops. Everyone wants more bicycle cops. We just don’t have that luxury right now.”
"We do not have that luxury unless people are willing to pay more taxes," said Elicker after hearing how many more officers the city used to have. "Everyone wants more beat cops. Everyone wants more bicycle cops. We just don't have that luxury right now."
It must be hard for Reyes, Elicker et al to deal at the same time with this set of fervent neighborhood wishes, and the simultaneous demands to "defund the police."
As currently framed, how can both demands be accurate and how is the city to address both of them at once?
I'm aware that they are not actually polar opposites; nor do they simply represent opposite sides of a racial or socio-economic divide, though that's obviously part of it. But to keep this issue from hardening into a genuine racial and class divide, I think it would really help if representatives of the various humane and well-intentioned grassroots concerns made a point of communicating better with each other about the content and phrasing of their messaging.