Paul Bass Photo
Alder candidate Shafiq Abdussabur detailing his 10-point policing plan at Wednesday event.
Landlords are ready to offer cops discounted rents to live in the city, according to a political candidate who unveiled a 10-point plan to address New Haven’s red-hot gun violence.
The candidate, retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur, updated his 10-point plan at a press conference held Wednesday outside the Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills police substation next to Minore’s Poultry & Foods Market on Whalley Avenue. Abdussabur is seeking the Democratic nomination for alder from Beaver Hills’ Ward 28.
Surrounded by Beaver Hills neighbors, Abdussabur unveiled the plan the morning after the city’s latest fatal shooting of a Black man, Richard Whittaker Jr.
It was the city’s 15th homicide already this year, on top of 48 nonfatal shootings, following 138 nonfatal shootings and 20 homicides in 2020.
Abdussabur noted that vast majority of victims have been Black.
“Black people are dying,” he said, standing besides two relatives who have lost children to gun violence in New Haven, Celeste Fulcher and Sonda Whitfield.
“We are dying. We are getting sick of excuses. … We have to get New Haven back on track.”
Salwa Abdussabur, manager of their father’s campaign: “We are in a state of emergency.”
Abdussabur appealed for the city to stop blaming victims for the circumstances of their deaths. He compared the blaming of Black violence victims to accusations that Beaver Hills Jews weren’t “friendly enough” amid a spate of attacks on Beaver Hills Orthodox Jews last year and similar assigning of blame to women or members of LGBTQ and Latino communities when they come under attack.
Then he unveiled his ten-point plan for immediate steps to address gun violence in New Haven. The list includes the idea of landlords offering reduced rents to police officers willing to live in the city, and thus interact more with the community. When cops know people in a community better, they develop trust, which can reduce police-community tensions and help citizens feel more comfortable providing information about crimes.
Abdussabur said he has spoken to a number of landlords who have agreed to offer the discounts. He said they don’t want to be identified until the group works out deatils with the NHPD.
His plan’s other planks include:
• Expanding the detective bureau to include more Black and Latino officers on 90-day temporary assignments. (The supervisor of the major crimes unit is Black; none of the homicide detectives under him are.)
NHPD’s current ranks.
• Hiring more Black cops and assigning more to supervisory positions. Abdussabur, who once served as Newhallville’s district manager, noted that none of the city’s ten policing districts has a Black top cop, in a city where 8 out of 138 nonfatal gunshot victims last year were Black men. For the first time since 1993, the department has no one Black or Latino serving as chief, assistant chief, or captain.
• Conducting weekly “community trauma/resource canvassing at shooting victims’ homes” and neighborhoods. Abdussabur displayed a print-out of all the addresses connected to 2020 victims; he and Pastor John Lewis said they will begin next week convening canvass teams.
• Creating a summer program through the city to train high school graduates and young adults this summer for blue-collar/trades jobs come the fall
• Installing video cameras in parks and more ares where shootings have occurred or might occurred.
• “Identify youth, young adults, and women who are at risk of being victims of gun violence.”
• Restoring walking daytime and evening walking beats in all 10 policing districts. The department has been short staffed, leading to the elimination of walking beats. The flow of federal Covid-relief dollars will help pay for temporary walking assignments this summer in some neighborhoods.
• Reviving block watches.
• “Speed bumps. Speed humps. Electronic speed signs!” In other words, more traffic-calming throughout the city. “Aside from getting shot at and dodging bullets, we’re dodging cars and getting run over,” Abdussabur said.
Mayoral candidates have released their own plans for tackling the uptick in violence. Click here to read about Mayor Justin Elicker’s. Click here to read about 1 21-point plan released by Karen DuBois-Walton, who’s challenging Elicker for the Democratic mayoral nomination.
Activist Rodney Williams (pictured) added an 11th proposal after Wednesday’s press conference ended: To pay people throughout the city to install Ring video cameras connected to the police to increase the amount of video evidence of crimes.
Yes to all of retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur's suggestions and Rodney Williams suggestion. More teens and young adult life skills and trade skills programs.
But not just reduced rent to police officers to live in at risk to violence neighborhoods, but also home purchasing assistance programs expanded for police, fire fighters, EMTs/paramedics, teachers, and other city employees, and nurses, doctors, and other Yale New Haven Health/Hospital system workers and Yale University workers. The more professionals we have living throughout the community, the more role models and stabilizing influences we have in all the neighborhoods.