Some 150 Fair Haveners banging on pots and marching in protest descended on a house whose occupants they accuse of committing crimes in the neighborhood. A defiant woman greeted them with this message: “Go talk to the niggers who sell drugs to the little kids next door. You got the wrong people. You’re talking shit.”
The march started Monday night from St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Blatchley Avenue.
“We’re going to keep it real and we’re going to build relationships,” said Father James Manship of St. Rose of Lima. He was helping to lead the procession in the cold to confront residents of a house on nearby Richard Street, which neighbors have been citing as the source of a growing local crime problem.
Coordinated by ECCO (Elm City Congregations Organized), the marchers carried pots and pans and candles to, in Manship’s words, “wake people up and to help them see the light of caring.”
Founded in 1993 in New Haven, ECCO is a network of 23 churches and other organizations that uses the organizing model of Saul Alinsky, the legendary community organizer in Chicago, to build grassroots leaders through training they are given in response to solving local problems.
The specific local problem at hand began when teenage residents of the house on Richard Street allegedly pelted Maria Susana Lopez with stones when she tried to stop them from breaking into her car .(Lopez and her brother Alberto Mendieto are pictured, with Manship on the left.) That was back in December. In the following days, as other problems mounted, like garbage being tossed onto the street, Lopez, a leader at St. Lima and a trainee with ECCO, knocked on doors trying to involve the neighbors in a meeting at the church to get to know one another and air the problems.
But the problems persisted and grew more serious. Lopez’s home was invaded. Her brother Alberto Mendietto was severely beaten with a baseball bat. Lopez went to Father Jim, and the direct action was planned. But would it work?
Along the march route, which went up Blatchley, across Wolcott, and then down towards the targeted house, songs were sung, including the Battle Hymn of the Republic in Spanish. “Venga,” called out the marchers to their neighbors. “Come join us.”
“A key part of the action, a secondary goal” said Pat Spear, lead organizer for ECCO, “is to let people know they are not alone.” (In the ECCO spirit of promoting grassroots leadership, Spear, Manship and the other organizer, Kevin Ewing of Mutual Housing, insisted they be photographed less, or not at all, and that the focus be on the community participants.)
“What I mean,” he continued, “is that Susana and Alberto are not alone when good hard-working people have bad things happen, and also that the people who did this need to know that the community is watching and caring. To let the good people know that they outnumber the bad, and to bring those other folks into the fold of caring. To do that they need to come to meetings so we can solve the problems, ourselves, not through the police, but through direct talk.”
p(clear). 
For Victor and Elizabeth Ramos, who live near St. Rose’s, this direct action was important. “Here people are afraid to come to a meeting,” he said. “This will help keep the neighborhood the way it should be for families and for the kids.”
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Ann Ramsey, of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Hamden (pictured as she turned onto Wolcott Street) came to hold her candle, in part, she said, because “we do parish sharing, our church with St. Rose.” By which she meant they support each other’s activities. “This is exactly what’s needed down here to get people involved. Look at this.”
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Indeed residents were coming out of their houses, turning on porch lights, as the procession neared the house on Richard. Carlos Castleman, of East Pearl Street, marched in the lead carrying a sign that read: “El respeto a derecho ajeno es la paz.” (Respect for a person’s right is peace, he translated.) Castleman, who is also active at St. Rose’s, said this was his first direct action, and it is exactly what churches should be doing. “I think it’s awesome.”
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Arriving at the house, Manship knocked and called out, “We want to start the new year being good neighbors. Come out Luz, come out Thaddeus,” he called. When they didn’t come out, Manship blew a whistle, and the assembled crowd banged pots and called, “Venga, come out.”
p(clear). Eventually Luz, a young woman, emerged on the porch. Two teenagers, believed to be those involved in the criminal activity, dashed in and out. The large crowd unnerved her. “You’re in the wrong place,” she said. “Go to the crack house next door.”
p(clear). Then she dashed back inside, but came out again in response to another call of the crowd.
p(clear). “We want to help you make this a better neighborhood starting this year,” Manship continued. “You know why we’re here.”
p(clear). But this time Luz responded with resistance and denial: “You’ll never get me to go to your church acting like this. Why talk to me? I’m not the problem. Go talk to the niggers who sell drugs to the little kids next door. You got the wrong people. You’re talking shit. We didn’t do it.”
p(clear). 
With that, the door was definitively closed, and the marchers, in the disciplined style of ECCO, moved on, and back to the church for an evaluation.
p(clear). Kevin Ewing, stopping with Lopez, said he deemed the action successful. “We got what we wanted. We let them know we’re here. Yes, she was embarrassed, but in the process we also learned about the other problems on the block.”
p(clear). Then he motioned down Richard Street, which was quiet in the cold eight o’clock air
p(clear). “It’s quiet now, but at 2 in the morning it will be full of kids running alone, wild here. Parenting is a little out of control, and we need to help.”
p(clear). Mutual Housing owns about eight houses on Richard Street, although not the problem house where Luz is renting. “This is not the first but the fourth direct action,” Ewing said, “that we’ve had on Richard Street. We’ve only just begun with her.”
p(clear). Indeed, back at the church, Manship thanked all the participants. Did the direct action work? “Well, we’ll see on Thursday,” Manship said. “Several of us, the leaders, and those in training, will be going back to the building to talk to her. But look at all these righteous people,” he said. “There’s so much good in the neighborhood, and we know it’s hard for parents to always maintain control. There’s no crime wave in this neighborhood, but if you don’t attend to little things, things can spiral out. And this is fun too. The most important thing is to remember the star in the night sky there, like we celebrated on Epiphany the other day. The worst thing is to be alone in a kind of darkness with no light. Look around you. Look at all this light.”
p(clear). Then Father Manship excused himself to go back to the basement of St. Rose’s, where a formal evaluation of the direct action, closed to the press, was being conducted.