Winfield: We’ll Put Pols, Top Cops ​“To Test”

Another failed career politician who chooses to point fingers at others instead of look in the mirror at decades of failed school and housing policies. You are the 'pols' and you already failed the test.

$18,000 per year per student and the school system is a mess. Public housing to keep people dependent on government. How about a program for home ownership for the people who have lived here for years?

Senator Winfield is so anti law enforcement that his views disqualify him from any reforms in policing.

Police brutality is awful. Use of physical force to effect an arrest is part of the job and good officers know the difference. And most officers, 99% of them, are hard working men and women who do a good job. Everybday.

Where is the New Haven delegation on doing something substantive to dismantle white supremacy in our laws and legal system?
It's time for bold, imaginative action and not for feel good projects or photo ops or reform that keep all the systems in place that maintain injustice - such as our penal colonies, which should be replaced with rehab campuses or our paramilitary police to be replaced with community peacekeepers.

This is unrelated to the issue at hand, but I felt the need to voice my thoughts. The New Haven delegation is an embarrassment to this city. Besides Porter and Winfield, they are all talk, no game. Why is it that in New Haven we never talk about the incompetence of state assembly? The Mayor and Alders always get attention and are rightfully criticized when they do something wrong, but it seems our Hartford politicians go on with their lives doing nothing without anyone raising an eyebrow. How long has Patricia Dillon been in office? What has Juan Candelaria accomplished that he spearheaded? How come Martin Looney is the president of the Senate, yet out schools are always underfunded?

"Some cops think I think every cop is a racist," Winfield said on "Dateline." Rather, he said, he believes "black people have a tendency to die at extremely high rates compared to whites when they interact with police. [Officers] can kill with impunity."


WRONG, what you feel/believe and what is actual are two different things, facts over feelings. According to the stats in the Washington Post 371 white people were shot and killed by police as opposed to 236 black. According to the most updated stats I could find thus far for this year is 42 white and 31 black, I'm sure not every police shooting involving whites was justified, I would be foolish to think that, so he is wrong.

As far as Farmers story why should he be believed??

"Winfield said on "Dateline." Rather, he said, he believes "black people have a tendency to die at extremely high rates compared to whites when they interact with police." Mr. Winfield, respectfully, but I think you are wrong, check the data, please. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/

@DMH464: If Blacks are 13% of the population, then the numbers you cite show that they are disproportionately victims of police violence.

Hey DMH464:

A key part of white supremacy (and all manipulative attempts to squelch challenges to power) is to put black people on the defensive, trapped in a cycle of "convincing" a relentlessly unwilling audience to think differently about themselves and the society that indoctrinated them. It maintains whites at the center of every conversation. But, convincing white people that racism is real is not my first priority, just like convincing men that rape is real is not my first priority. If you want to maintain a willful ignorance because you can't wrap your head around an idea that is unsettling to you, then that is your choice. You wouldn't be the first and you wouldn't be the last.

Historically, whites have maniacally fought to protect their unwillingness to shed the indoctrination of White Supremacy. They argue by citing the White Supremacist history that they were taught, the White Supremacist focus on the delivery of a message rather than the message itself, and the White Supremacist assumptions that white people are experts of racial awareness, that's whites are objective.

When you are

• governed by Nazis
  
• schooled by Nazis
  
• raised in neighborhoods segregated and nurtured by Nazis,
  
• fed endless Nazi propaganda and advertising that teach you that you are a master race
  
• fed myths that your version of history is the only one that is legit
  
  then, you can't be surprise you have absorbed a Nazi perspective. Of course you don't want to believe any challenge. So you'll make up all sorts of justifications, as the Nazis did, to cover up the very concrete, state-sanctioned, systematic oppression and murder of Jews.
  
  How is America different? If the Nazi are universally recognized as monsters for their targeting of a group of people, and our participation in WWII to end it was noble, then how do you criticize Americans essentially going to war with our government over its targeting of a group? How are WWII soldiers noble but protesters are not?

I've been in meetings where Winfield has attended, and watched him throughout his career, I all I have to say is that even his demeanor is divisive. He doesn't understand the importance of his role in making change. What good are you if you don't have the credibility to pass important legislation. Why, because it is not simply about creating legislation, it is about legitimacy. People will listen to you, Gary, if they feel you are a positive person with a genuine desire for change. You spread hate with your demeanor. Even when you are around police you express disdain and exude hate with your body language. You are a leader in our community, at least by title, know that you need to lead and galvanize through your actions, through your demeanor, through your words and your legislation. Learn from your colleague Senator Porter, she engages EVERYONE and she spreads a positive message of unity and change. Even if you don't believe in the message of unity, Gary, pretend! You are a Political and community leader...

Hey DMH464, part 2:

Since I am a teacher, I encourage you to watch any of the following films, and then see what you think.

The only answer is to get more information rather than argue that everyone is wrong.

-COINTELPRO 101
https://vimeo.com/15930463

-Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
https://www.pbs.org/video/independent-lens-black-panthers-vanguard-revolution-full-episode/

-13th
https://www.documentaryarea.tv/player.php?title=13th)

-Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
https://www.pbs.org/video/black-america-mlk-and-still-i-rise-part-1/

Or, you can read Slavery by Another Name or The New Jim Crow or Stokely Speaks or anything written by James Baldwin.

Do any of these steps and you'll be more in line with the ideal of America as "a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere" (Reagon).

@PK

You can play with the numbers however you like but the fact remains that Winfield was wrong basing his assertions on feelings not facts.

If blacks make up 13% of the population they should only be committing 13% or less of the crimes, instead, they are committing crimes almost three times as many crimes as they should be so that would mean more police contact which could end in death depending on the incident/circumstances. White people make up
about 61% of the population and are responsible for approximately 58% of violent crime.

There is nothin 3/5's could ever convince me of because he is too myopic and jaded in his views. This is a person attacking clergy for standing up for Elicker and Reyes because they praised them, pretty sad. Someone like him/her cannot truly be unbiased in his views of police, it's obvious, and I don't need to walk in anyones shoes to know what's right and wrong.

Lastly every week black die at the hands of blacks in the same manner that you expounded upon regarding police, what's your point. A life taken unjustly by anyone of any color is wrong, period. It doesn't matter if they wear a badge on their chest or bandanna over their face.

It only seems that we get this type of protest, rioting, looting, arson, murder of innocents when a black life is taken by a white officer and don't act like what I'm say is untrue, that is truly the only time that Black Lives Matter. Think I'm lying ask anyone of them to name one victim of the Chicago violence this past weekend.

Just check the stats of the gun violence this past weekend in Chicago, dare I say the majority of, if not all of those victims, some children, were minority and not taken by police or someone white.

@Clarity: You wrote "Even when you are around police you express disdain and exude hate
with your body language:"

Who's going to put Senator Winfield to the test? He will be exempt. An individual so anti police that anyone listening to him on the issues is nuts.

Equally annoying is the theme of everyone out of jail immediately by Patricia Kane. Some people who violate the law deserve their place of residency, like drug dealers and violent felons, gun felons, sex offenders and murderers.

And the Lions Club entry who invokes Nazi's to make a point has made one. He's senseless.

@DMH464:

@DMH464: I almost forgot to mention: street arrests are easy; how many white collar criminals (aka banksters) every get sent to jail? Notice how T's cronies will either get convictions reversed or have sentences shortened.
Jeffrey Epstein is the poster boy for how connected white pedophiles don't even serve conventional jail time.
But keeping focusing on black people. One day you may even get to know one.

@Chris246: Inmates are in the custody of the State and the State is obligated to keep them safe. In a time of pandemic, there is no "social distancing". Guards are rotated in and out and can carry the virus. Once it spreads, some will die.

When a rich, well connected convict, a pedophile, is released for health reasons, why don't others qualify.

@PK

When Winfield spoke about what he believes that's not experience, that's feelings, and I see you totally brushed over most of my facts not feelings but that's okay, that's what you do counselor. I'm not as educated as you but I know the difference between feelings and facts, truth versus perception.

Oh look another protest that will spin the same rhetoric that we have been hearing all week and waste the taxpayers money, because the economy is doing so well. Yes what happened to Mr. Floyd was unjust and those officers should be punished but there is nothing that Black Lies Matter can teach me other than their sheer hypocrisy. As I have said before when it comes to the BLM black lives only matter when taken at the hands of white people, mainly police.

I bet not one of the BLM leaders out there today can name one child that was killed over the weekend in Chicago, don't those lives matter, they just don't fit the narrative and don't act like what I'm saying is untrue.

By all means go and enjoy the show your "white guilt" demands it.

Many people are in jail for crimes they didn't commit, because they couldn't afford bail, because the criminal justice system bullies them into pleading guilty, rather than fighting for the truth, because the public defenders are overwhelmed with cases, because drugs have been imported into the cities and poor communities from Latin America and the Middle East and the Far East and from Big Pharma, because the manufacturing jobs that used to provide a living that you could raise a family on with less than a high school education were moved Overseas and to Latin America where other poor and oppressed minorities and children work under dangerous and unsafe conditions to provide cheap goods for Americans and Europeans in the West. Because people and police thought "they all look alike" when identifying them in a lineup, because people were victims of crimes and society just wanted someone to pay for the crime and they didn't care if it wasn't the actual criminal, because white people falsely accused them of crimes when their white privilege was challenged, Because if they hit out of jail, they couldn't get jobs, or housing due to their record.Because the systematic oppression and criminalization that targeted always the most recent immigrant wave but allowed for assimilation and Americanization for only those without black and brown faces. Because of the racism, the cronyism, the elitism, the sexism, the capitalism which systematically prevents the poor, the female, the black, the brown, the ethnic, the non-Christian, the LGBTQ, the anyone who didn't have WASP descendants to be treated as "less than" or "other" and to be passed over for jobs, for promotions, for raises, for housing, for equal education opportunities, and so on, and so on.... and the endless prejudice and oppression that day in and day out systematically views those people as dangerous or annoying or "undesirable" and judges them to be inferior or criminals or as servants or "animals" or unredeemable.

I've been a huge Winfield fan since he lead the charge against the death penalty in Connecticut. You can tell a lot about someone's morals based on how they are willing to treat our worst members of society. Mercy and forgiveness are virtues I wish all of our politicians held more deeply.

Also, if you really think 99% of cops are good people you are insane. My guess is the real number is something like 60-70%, but since they won't stick up for us against the rest of them, then how good are they, really? If you protect brutality, how much better are you, really?

posted by: DMH464 on June 3, 2020 12:18pm

There is nothin 3/5's could ever convince me of because he is too myopic and jaded in his views. This is a person attacking clergy for standing up for Elicker and Reyes because they praised them, pretty sad. Someone like him/her cannot truly be unbiased in his views of police, it's obvious, and I don't need to walk in any ones shoes to know what's right and wrong.

You do not have to walk in any ones shoes to know what's right and wrong.You could do like the journalist John Howard Griffin did. He pass as a black man to see life and segregation from the other side of the color line.They even made a movie about him call Black Like Me.James Whitmore played him.Did you every see it?

Black Like Me 1964 Movie Trailer

https://youtu.be/uTJDWPIy2eo

Patricia Kane says there is no social distancing in prison. Gee that's a deep statement. It's prison and to get there criminals have to do a lot to get there. Multiple arrests, criminal behavior and desire to make $ through criminal means is their ticket to prison.

I will agree that street arrests are easy because most crooks aren't Rhodes Scholars and the Rabbi should be rotting away in prison, not released.

Prison is not a social club and they will never be called a campus.

@Chris246: your sneering dismissal of appropriate concerns for inmates health and safety exemplifies everything that supports the abuses that have caused protesters to take to the streets shouting "No justice; No peace!"

@Chris: If you think that the people in jail are all there because they did a lot to get there, then you are sorely misinformed. The quickest way to remedy that would be to watch 13th on Netflix. It completely destroys any fallacy relating to who and what makes a criminal.

If you love your country, you must understand it first. You cannot authentically respect or love something that you don't understand.

@Dennis..once again you speak without engaging your brain.Sen. Gary Winfield is by far the best of the best. If I had an hour I could relate how many times he has come to my and my daughter's aid. He has done more to eradicate bad law and bad policy than any other pol I hv ever met. To attempt to further your bizarre agenda on the back of one of the most respected members of the Senate will not get u the Alder seat. U have just sunk your boat. Sen. Winfield is a long time union supporter and friend of justice! If a cop needed him,he would b right there! Go after the BOE budget..there is so much waste in there it's ridiculous. The Sen. is not the enemy.

@Patricia Kane....u ask questions of elected officials which are fair however, I wonder just what steps have u taken to fight your perceived wrongs? The same goes for Dennis...his agenda is suspect at best. Even in CMT mtg. He has been asked to stop...Until u 2 put your actions where your mouths are...u criticism is invalid.

Kudos to Sen. Winfield! As always u put people...ALL THE PEOPLE including cops, first! You are a true leader..u bring solutions not merely side chair whining to the table! Thank you AGAIN!

@DawnBli: I'm happy to share my history of activism with you, but not on the pages of the NHI. Paul Bass has my personal contact info. Contact me and we can talk or email or text.

@DMH464 said: "It's prison and to get there criminals have to do a lot to get there."

Well gee, I guess all's well then in this, the best of all possible worlds. No injustice or inequality here! Our biggest problem, apparently, is the "hypocrisy" of BLM activists (which, at the moment, encompasses a huge percentage of Americans of many ethnicities). Glad we've cleared that up; your priorities are exactly where they should be.

@jimjoebob

You need to fact check yourself, that quote is not form my post, Chris246 posted that comment...

If you sit in court whenever it resumes after the pandemic you will see that the majority of cases except for violent crime are addressed with a nolle. That's a fact.

In Hartford there is Community Court and that court reduces incarceration by sentencing people who commit misdemeanors law to community service, alcohol and drug counseling and whatever the court directs the offender to do, For first time offenders records are erased if court requirements are completed. That is good thing.

Many suspects who do go to jail have exhausted all other options presented by the court and get their sentence,

Violent offenders deserve prison.

An example from MN of why we have bad cops:
https://www.startribune.com/here-s-why-cops-can-t-be-held-accountable/570998142/

We need to break the police unions that protect abusive cops, and end Loudermill rights for cops which subordinate public safety to the police officers' employment rights.