Legal Writes

C.O. Trauma Put In Spotlight

by | Oct 23, 2024 2:23 pm | Comments (6)

Thomas Breen photo

The Whalley Ave. jail, as viewed from Hudson St.

Correction officers, or C.O.s, are so stressed they divorce at a 70 percent rate, and their average life expectancy is an alarming 59 years, far less than the national average.

Those stats and un-siloing” of the plight of C.O.s were at the heart of an unusual, sobering panel discussion at Albertus Magnus College — all about trying to find holistic reform of a broken prison system.

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1 Week Later, Rally Protests Police Shooting

by | Sep 27, 2024 9:59 am | Comments (18)

Nathaniel Rosenberg photos

Protest organizer Kerry Ellington: “The police could have chosen a nonviolent alternative."

Conley's cousins Tamara Flint, Ronisha Moore, and Maya Harris, at Thursday's protest.

A week to the hour after a fatal confrontation between police and 36-year-old New Havener Jebrell Conley, protesters gathered at the car wash where the shooting took place — to criticize law enforcement for how they handled last Thursday’s attempted arrest, and to describe Conley as more than just his criminal record.

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New Haven Legal Aid Turns 60

by | Sep 26, 2024 10:35 am | Comments (10)

Laura Glesby photo

Keynote speaker Rev. Barber: "Poverty is a structural reality."

Rev. William Barber had a message for dozens of legal aid staffers and supporters: After 60 years of serving New Haven, don’t rest your case” against poverty.

Barber, the co-chair of the revived national Poor People’s Campaign and a professor at Yale, was the keynote speaker at a gala for New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA), an event that filled the beachside venue at Anthony’s Ocean View on Wednesday night.

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"Brell" File Reveals Violent Robbery, Childhood

by | Sep 25, 2024 12:47 pm | Comments (42)

Inspector General photo

Conley, as pictured after shooting at police during fatal confrontation on Sept. 19.

2016 sentencing memo image

Conley's fifth-grade perfect attendance certificate, as included as exhibit in defense sentencing memo in 2016 federal drug case.

The fatal confrontation last week between police and 36-year-old New Havener Jebrell Conley stemmed from a July 3 robbery in Hamden during which Conley and others allegedly hit, pistol-whipped, and shot a man as they stole his drugs and money.

That in turn stemmed from Conley’s years-long involvement in the illegal drug trade and New Haven gang life — which grew out of a troubled upbringing in the Hill in the 1990s and the shooting death of a brother whom he looked up to as a father.

Those details and many more are included in federal court documents about criminal cases involving Conley, who appeared to fire first at — and then was shot and killed by — city and state police as they sought to serve him with a robbery-shooting warrant late in the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 19, at a car wash just over the New Haven-West Haven town border.

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Report, Videos Detail Fatal Police Shooting

by | Sep 23, 2024 5:25 pm | Comments (39)

State Police Sgt. Richter's body cam footage. Warning: This video contains graphic violence.

(Updated) Jebrell Conley appeared to fire first as cops boxed him in and tried to arrest him on robbery-shooting charges at a car wash just over the New Haven-West Haven border.

Three of those officers — including two city cops — responded by shooting and killing Conley.

Those details are included in a preliminary report released by the state Office of the Inspector General on Monday afternoon.

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7 Arrested After Counterfeit Pill "Lab" Bust

by | Sep 23, 2024 3:26 pm | Comments (9)

Dereen Shirnekhi photo

U.S. Attorney Vanessa Avery and DEA Special Agent David Lanzoni: This was the "largest seizure of fake pills we've seen in New England."

A garage-turned-“lab” equipped with 2,000-pound pill-pressing machines churned out two million synthetic opioid pills containing ingredients more potent than even fentanyl — and now sits at the center of Connecticut’s largest ever clandestine drug manufacturing bust. 

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Can Collector-Bomb Suspect Case Continued

by | Sep 19, 2024 3:21 pm | Comments (14)

Jabez Choi photos

At Thursday's homeless rights courthouse protest.

Roosevelt Watkins came out to the Elm Street courthouse steps Thursday morning to help make protest signs reading Collecting Cans Is Not A Crime” — before heading inside to support a 22-year-old homeless man who has been locked up for the past three weeks for a can-throwing bomb scare.

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Yale Arrestee Pays $90 Fine; Charges Dropped

by | Sep 19, 2024 2:30 pm | Comments (15)

Thomas Breen photo

Birckhead-Morton in court with attorney David Grudberg: "I think there's a connection with policing, militarization" that inspires Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestine protesters alike.

Craig Birckhead-Morton took the train from Harlem to New Haven Thursday morning to close out one chapter of his on-campus pro-Palestine activism — before resuming his critique of state violence in the Middle East as a grad student in New York City. 

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Judge: No Bargaining, No Pay Bump

by | Sep 18, 2024 5:28 pm | Comments (9)

Thomas Breen photo

Judge Wax-Krell: "The plaintiffs were unfortunately let down by everyone who they trusted to get them the raises they were promised."

A state judge threw out a lawsuit filed by two retired city workers on the grounds that the Board of Alders dropped the ball when trying to provide those unionized employees with a pay bump — outside of the collective bargaining process.

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