4 People Shot In 2 Days
by | Sep 4, 2024 9:04 am | Comments (38)
(Updated) Four people were injured across three different shootings between Monday and Tuesday afternoons.
Legal Writes
Yale Arrestees Seek To Dismiss Charges
by | Aug 30, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (14)
Yash Roy file photo
Yale police arrest a student protester in the morning of April 22.
Thomas Breen file photo
The first night of the Beinecke Plaza encampment, on April 19.
More than 40 Yale student protesters who were arrested en masse at a pro-Palestinian encampment in Beinecke Plaza last semester are calling for a state judge to throw out their criminal trespassing charges on the grounds that they weren’t all properly notified before Yale police started making arrests.
City Hall Evacuated Amid Bomb Squad Probe
by | Aug 30, 2024 1:09 pm | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
City spokesperson Lenny Speiller talks with police as they re-open Elm and Orange streets soon after 12 p.m.
City police shut down two busy downtown blocks and evacuated City Hall and 200 Orange St. as they investigated — and rendered safe — three suspicious, and ultimately empty, canisters that had been placed near those municipal government buildings early Friday morning by a man who is now in police custody.
Continue reading ‘City Hall Evacuated Amid Bomb Squad Probe’
Yale Protests Resume Along With Classes
by | Aug 28, 2024 2:37 pm | Comments (24)
Laura Glesby Photo
Student-led protests resume as the semester starts up.
Over 100 Yale students and allies marked the first day of classes by calling for a “Free, Free Palestine” on the steps of the Elm Street courthouse — as 14 students arrested on campus for protesting last spring returned to the courtroom to call for their misdemeanor trespassing charges to be dismissed.
War's Shadow, & The Story Behind A Lie
by | Aug 21, 2024 1:29 pm | Comments (2)
Federal court filing
An excerpt from Kamash's sentencing memo, illustrated by a traumatic image of the violence that beset the part of Iraq he lived in during the Iraq War.
Mohamed Kamash was born in February of 1991 as American bombs fell upon his home town of Tal Afar, in northern Iraq. The six-week aerial bombing campaign known as Operation Desert Storm killed thousands of Iraqi civilians, and, unable to risk a hospital visit in what would be its final days, Kamash’s mother gave birth to her son at home.
Those details of a life upended by war and migration from the very start emerged in recently filed federal court papers in a yearslong case that has now reached its conclusion. They also put in painful biographical context a refugee’s decision to lie under oath in an effort to distance himself from his past, and try to stay in his adopted new home.
Jury Sides With Teacher, Orders City To Pay $1.1M
by | Aug 13, 2024 5:48 pm | Comments (65)
Contributed photo
Jessica Light (right): Feeling "vindicated" by jury's verdict.
(Updated) A federal jury has awarded former Worthington Hooker elementary school teacher Jessica Light $1.1 million in damages after finding that the school’s principal defamed and retaliated against her for publicly raising concerns about the safety of returning to in-person learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading ‘Jury Sides With Teacher, Orders City To Pay $1.1M’
Retreat Foreclosure Case Comes To Court
by | Aug 12, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Retreat affiliate attorney Richard Weinstein: "You have a receiver in place. If he wants to throw out perishables, obviously, he can throw out perishables."
(Updated) An abandoned drug rehab center on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard feels a bit “like the rapture,” a foreclosure-pursuing attorney said in state court on Friday.
There’s rotting food in the kitchen. There are utility-turn off notices lying around. And there’s now more than $300,000 in back property taxes due.
It’s as if “people just picked up one day and left,” the attorney said — even though the addiction treatment center has been closed for a month and a half.
Warrant: Cameras Captured Midday Murder
by | Aug 9, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Isael Arroyo, Y'madelis Arroyo, Jay'na Estrada, and Yesenia Arroyo mourn their father's death, and commend police for arresting his alleged shooter.
Murder victim Peter "PJ" Arroyo.
A man dressed all in black walked west on Wolcott Street, pulled a gun out of his waistband, and fired shot after shot after shot — killing 42-year-old New Havener Peter Arroyo, whom police believe was not the shooter’s intended victim.
That fatal gunfire took place in broad daylight in Fair Haven on a Monday afternoon in May, in full view of a number of witnesses and — crucially, for the police investigation to follow — in full view of surveillance cameras.
Antitrusters, Rejoice!
by | Aug 7, 2024 12:36 pm | Comments (3)
“Pro consumer. Pro competition. Pro innovation.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal used those words to herald a federal judge’s ruling from earlier this week that Google is a “monopolist” that has acted illegally to protect the market power of its online search engine.
Stolen Cop Car Crashed Into Church
by | Aug 7, 2024 10:42 am | Comments (21)
Dashboard video sound begins at 0:29. “Get your gun out!” shouts the driver to the cop. “Shoot!”
“Open the door,” a 49-year-old man shouted at a police officer sitting in the passenger side of a parked cruiser on Congress Avenue.
The man said he was being followed. He told the officer to get out of the car.
The officer unlocked the vehicle, tried to radio for help, and the man got in — and started driving.
If You're Drunk, This Car Will Know
by | Aug 6, 2024 3:27 pm | Comments (30)
Thomas Breen photo
Blumenthal: Not drunk, ready to drive.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal sat in the driver’s seat of an electric Ford Mustang and breathed.
A monitor behind the steering wheel flashed green — indicating that his blood alcohol content (BAC) was below the state’s legal limit of .08, and therefore he was all clear to drive.
If the car’s sensor had detected too high of a BAC, the monitor would have flashed red, and Blumenthal wouldn’t have been able to get the car to move.
10-Year-Old Injured By Hill Shooting
by | Aug 6, 2024 1:08 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
Police Chief Karl Jacobson (right) with police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart.
A 10-year-old child was injured following an early morning shooting on Congress Avenue Tuesday.
Foreclosure Suit: Closed Drug Rehab Center Left Open To Trespassers
by | Aug 5, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen file photo
Retreat's now-closed 915 Ella T. Grasso location.
Patient records, narcotics, and piles of mail allegedly remained inside a drug rehab center on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard a month after the facility abruptly closed — and were all accessible to anyone able to push through the shuttered complex’s back door.
Continue reading ‘Foreclosure Suit: Closed Drug Rehab Center Left Open To Trespassers’
Elicker, Smart Testify In Pay-Bump Trial
by | Aug 2, 2024 1:42 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker on the witness stand: City labor relations office handles this stuff.
City Clerk Smart: I signed the amendment.
Can the Board of Alders grant raises to unionized employees through the city budget process without those pay bumps also being ratified by collective bargaining agreements? Or do union contracts have the final word on how much covered municipal workers are paid?
Those questions sit at the center of a bench trial that began Friday morning in a fifth-floor courtroom at the state courthouse at 235 Church St.
The trial marks the latest legal entanglement between the legislative and executive branches of city government, raising questions about who has the power to provide money to which city workers, and why.
"New Sheriff" Chris Alvarado Is In (Fair Haven) Town
by | Aug 2, 2024 1:06 pm | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
The new neighborhood top cop Thursday evening with Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith.
Fifteen-year NHPD veteran Sgt. Chris Alvarado has already seen the estimated 5 percent or so percent of Fair Haven that is troubled by drug dealing and serious crime. As the newly arrived district manager, he’s excited to be discovering the rest.
Continue reading ‘"New Sheriff" Chris Alvarado Is In (Fair Haven) Town’
Lawsuit Stalls 112 New Apartments
by | Jul 31, 2024 1:16 pm | Comments (70)
Laura Glesby Photo
The apartment-less Grand Ave. property on Tuesday.
(Updated) A lawsuit by a pair of Wooster Square neighbors concerned about backyard shade is jeopardizing plans to transform a series of abandoned Grand Avenue commercial buildings into 112 new places to live.
Warrant: Yearslong Beef Preceded Teen's Murder
by | Jul 30, 2024 1:00 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass file photo
Latasha Brown at a 2021 vigil across from Edgewood Park, one day after the murder of her son Tashawn: The cycle of violence continued.
Latasha Brown was driving towards the city’s homicide memorial when her son opened the car’s rear door and allegedly started shooting.
She was on her way to pay tribute to another son who had been murdered the year before.
En route, according to police, the son she was traveling with became a murderer himself.
Continue reading ‘Warrant: Yearslong Beef Preceded Teen's Murder’
Cops: Killer's Mom Was At The Wheel
by | Jul 25, 2024 5:43 pm | Comments (7)
Asher Joseph Photo
Unique Trujillo, a close friend of Joshua Vazquez, at Thursday's arrest announcement.
Police announced the arrest of the young man they said shot 16-year-old Joshua Vazquez to death one and a half years ago — and arrested the alleged shooter’s mom as well.
Joshua Vazquez’s family and friends gathered at the Shack community center in West Hills Thursday to mourn his murder and to recognize police for arresting his alleged shooter, who is now 19 years old.
Fired Cox Cop Loses Arbitration
by | Jul 24, 2024 5:45 pm | Comments (8)
NHPD image
Ofc. Diaz, Sgt. Segui, and Ofc. Pressley lifting Cox into wheelchair on June 19, 2022.
(Updated) State arbitrators have upheld the city’s decision to fire Sgt. Betsy Segui for her supervisory role in the mishandling of a detainee who suffered paralyzing injuries while in police custody — and expressed dismay that the arrested cop still thinks she did nothing wrong on that fateful night.
Man, 62, Found
Strangled To Death
by | Jul 23, 2024 6:17 pm | Comments (11)
The state chief medical examiner’s office has ruled the death of a New Haven man a homicide by strangulation.
Arrest Made In 16-Year-Old's Murder
by | Jul 19, 2024 3:21 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
Police Chief Jacobson (right), with Mayor Elicker: Working to "lower the temperature in the city" after last weekend's shootings.
A year and a half after 16-year-old Joshua Vazquez was shot and killed on a Monday afternoon in the West Hills neighborhood, city police have arrested an already-incarcerated 19-year-old on one felony count of murder.
Protest Spotlights Alleged Child Abuse
by | Jul 19, 2024 9:39 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen photo
Lida Llundo at Thursday's protest: "Yo necesito mi hija."
“Justicia por mi hija,” Lida Llundo said into a megaphone on the front steps of the police department, as she held up a framed picture of herself and her five-year-old daughter whom she fears is in great danger. “Yo necesito mi hija.”
Fair Rent Rejects 9 Retaliation Claims
by | Jul 17, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (31)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Emerson Tenants Union members RJ Hinds, Stephanie Perez, Alexander Kolokotronis, Yvonne Byrd-Griffin, and James Blau: On the losing end of Tuesday's Fair Rent rulings.
“Because.”
That was the key word in the Fair Rent Commission’s rejection of a host of tenants union retaliation complaints, on the grounds that the Emerson Apartments’ new landlord had done no legal wrong in not renewing their leases.
Alleged Gang Member Gets 9 Years
by | Jul 16, 2024 12:45 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Judge Bolden: "You can only dream of what you can imagine."
A 25-year-old alleged “Exit 8” gang member was sentenced to nearly a decade in prison — but not for the murder prosecutors claim he committed.
Killed Peace Activist's Memory Kept Alive
by | Jul 16, 2024 9:07 am | Comments (1)
Jabez Choi Photo
Yusuf Gürsey at a pro-Palestinian rally in April, before his death.
At a memorial service for 70-year-old local peace activist Yusuf Gürsey, friends and colleagues joined in person and over Zoom from all over the world — California, Puerto Rico, Turkey — to share stories and poems for the hit-and-run victim.
All knew him as a lover of languages, a beach fanatic, and a seemingly shy but loyal friend who had a fierce commitment to the liberation of all oppressed people.
Continue reading ‘Killed Peace Activist's Memory Kept Alive’