Paul Bass Photo
Efraim and Ashly Salas were among 250 St. Rose congregants pressing the chief for help Sunday.
Dario Ortiz and his family fought off and held onto a violent mugger for the cops. Now hundreds of fellow Fair Haven immigrants want the cops to do more to keep them safe.
Some 250 parishioners, primarily Latino and many of them immigrants, made that pitch directly to Police Chief Dean Esserman Sunday afternoon.
They said crime against immigrants in Fair Haven has jumped in the past two months. They said they need more cops and better-trained 911 operators.
They crowded the basement hall of St. Rose of Lima Church on Blatchley Avenue to hear the Ortiz family’s bloody ordeal and to put Esserman and city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts onstage for a Saul Alinsky-style mass demand session.
“We have been beaten. We have been robbed. They have vandalized our homes. We will not tolerate this any more!” declared one of the event’s organizers, Jeimy Zepeda (pictured) of both St. Rose and a regional activist coalition called CONECT (Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut).
“They have robbed us not only of our money. They have robbed us of our freedom as well.”
As she spoke, Esserman and Smuts sat on stage next to Dario and Mercedes Ortiz. Standing directly behind them and watching over their shoulders was of a statue of St. Rose of Lima.
Then Zepeda and fellow organizer Cecilio Cuapio posed five questions to Esserman and Smuts. The pair, who were told the questions beforehand, were asked to answer “yes” or “no,” as an organizer translated for the crowd.
The crowd received four “si” answers in responses.
Smuts promised to try to “improve the 911 system for our community and all Spanish speakers in New Haven as quickly as feasible.”
Esserman promised to put another walking cop in Fair Haven. He promised to give Fair Haven’s top cop extra resources when “crime problems arise.” He promised to help the congregation lobby the state to allow more immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses (so they can feel more comfortable bringing cops crime information even if that means having to show identification.; and so they get stopped and ticketed or arrested less often for traffic violations).
The crowd cheered each “si” response.
Esserman’s “no” came with an explanation.
Cuapio had asked him to promise to commit another patrol car to Fair Haven.
“The police chief should always tell the truth, yes?” Esserman began. That drew applause.
“No. No I can’t,” he continued.
“No, no puedo,” came the translation.
“I’m trying to put more officers on foot right now. And we have to choose right now between foot and car. So I have made the choice right now for foot.”
“I’m Going To Kill You”
Before the promise line-up, Dario Ortiz told his story to the crowd.
Ortiz, a 50-year-old Ecuadorean native, lives on Shelter Street. Around 9 p.m. on Sept. 1, he noticed some men loitering outside. He went out to investigate. One of them men jumped him, started hitting him. The man broke Ortiz’s nose, bloodying his face.
Ortiz managed to call 911.
A recording of that call was played for the St. Rose’s crowd Sunday as a picture of Ortiz’s bloodied face appeared on a screen. Ortiz appealed for help — in Spanish. His English is limited, even when he’s not being attacked.
The operator told him she doesn’t speak Spanish. Loud noise could be heard in the background signalling an attack.
Click here to listen to the call.
Ortiz then banged on his front door. His wife Mercedes and 16-year-old son Dario Jr. rushed out to help him. Meanwhile, a friend of the attacker joined in. Mercedes Ortiz Jr., who’s 21, came outside, too. The attacker — who the Ortiz family later learned had been seen on other occasions hitting neighbors and stealing their possessions — punched mom and her daughter, causing bruises and cuts.
The Ortiz family managed to hold onto the main attacker. “I’m going to kill you!” the attacker told them.
Dario Ortiz got back on with the 911 operator. Eventually he got her the address. Police arrived perhaps five minutes later and arrested the attacker.
“I have to say something after hearing that terrible story,” Chief Esserman told Ortiz Sunday. “As a father and as your police chief, I apologize to you.”
Esserman and Ortiz shook hands.
“I hope I would be as brave if I were to fight like you did,” Esserman added.
Hablan Espanol?
The 911 call was a focal point for the event’s organizers. They said the city needs to train its operators better to deal with calls from the Latino community.
After the event, the city’s Smuts said he believes that the operator followed departmental guidelines in dealing with the call — but that the incident demonstrated some of the problems that the city needs to address.
Only between 6 and 8 of the department’s about 46 911 operators speak Spanish he said. The department needs more, so that one can always be on call.
Also, the 911 system doesn’t do always do well pinpointing exact locations of calls if they come from cell phones. It can instantly pinpoint locations of land lines. The state is upgrading the mapping system, which New Haven uses, Smuts said.
“This is a challenge that 911 centers around the nation have,” Smuts said.
He added that the event’s organizers called his attention to a separate non-emergency call in which the dispatcher displayed some inappropriate “customer service.” He said he plans to look into that incident.
The Ortiz family at Sunday’s St. Rose event.