Whose Streets? Our Streets!

Lia Miller-Granger took the bullhorn into her hand, lifted it to her lips and declared to hundreds gathered at the corner of Church and Chapel that they needed to occupy the streets at the close of a brutal week in America.

“We are here as the power, the drive in our city. We are here to renew our strength,” Miller-Granger, president of Black Lives Matter New Haven, said. ​“We have to occupy these streets. We have to call these civil servants and hold them accountable. This is the beginning. Do not let the fire inside of you dissipate.”

Miller-Granger came out to the Green Friday to speak out against police brutality and two more names — Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile — that have been added to the long list of black men killed by police officers. The protest also was a show of solidarity for other marginalized people of color, particularly those in the Latino/Hispanic, LGBTQI and Muslim communities.

Over the course of the peaceful but vociferous four-hour protest, she was joined by a crowd of about 300 people that swelled to an estimated 700 by the time protestors marched around the lower Green and then blocked traffic on Temple Street before moving methodically through parts of downtown.

The protestors delayed the smattering of riders on the D4 Grand Avenue/Walmart bus and a few cars for about 10 minutes chanting ​“Whose streets? Our streets!” before marching against the one-way traffic on Temple and continuing on to Elm and Broadway, where they marched, accompanied by police who helped stop traffic, to Tower Parkway before turning around. There they delayed several cars, buses, and at least one Yale Shuttle.

Meanwhile, the Green remained a site where protestors could speak out, listen to each other, and respond, which many did with raised fists and deep murmurs and whoops of agreement.

“I have seven sons,” longtime activist Barbara Fair said. ​“We say we don’t know when the hour comes. The hour comes for me when one of them pigs do something to my child. I salute those mothers who can somehow carry on — you take my child, and I want you to hear it around the world. You take mine and you will not sit around the station and tell your story. Because I’m gonna go completely off. You wanna take my child’s life? Your life is gone, too. You better believe. I mean it to the bottom of my heart, to my bones and my soul. And when I say my sons I mean my grandsons too. Don’t even try it.” 

State Rep. Robyn Porter told the crowd Friday that when she learned that she was going to become a grandmother, she was initially excited. But when she learned that the baby would be a boy, that excitement turned to fear.

“They don’t care. We have to care,” she said. ​“Let’s talk truth to power — I’m sick and tired of my people being shot down like animals in the street. That child sat in the back of that car … I did not watch those videos because I grew up in New York City. I had my brothers die in my arms, shot down by cops in the city. I don’t need to see a video. I want to know what we’re gonna do. I’m here to tell you you have a responsibility that far exceeds just going to the ballot. You gotta hold politicians’ feet to the fire.” 

Several men in the crowd came forward to speak. One said that he had been stopped 17 times by New Haven police officers. Another said that he was afraid as both a black man and a gay man, but believed firmly that protesters and allies had to stick together, and that this was the time for people of color to ​“remember that you are descended from kings and queens.”

When counter-protestors attempted to break the rally’s peaceful atmosphere, protesters gathered to ensure that they would not succeed. People driving a pickup truck festooned with a Trump banner and two American flags repeatedly drove by the protestors and were greeted with unified chants of ​“Black Lives Matter.” A few counter-protestors who ventured closer, like Angel Morris, were made to stay on the periphery, where New Haven police officers patrolled the area.

“All lives matter!” she shouted at a chain of attendees who had linked arms as to not let her go further into the rally.

Keeping Watch

Police presence was heavy downtown Friday during the course of the protest, with police officers patrolling in pairs in response to the recent killings of five police officers in Dallas Thursday. Aside from the protesters’ act of civil disobedience in blocking the street, there was no altercations with police and no one was arrested.

Lt. Sam Brown, who serves as the deputy patrol commander for the police department, said coming to work was a little different after watching videos of two black men being killed by police officers and then learning that five police officers had been shot and killed in Dallas the night before.

“I was definitely looking around and up,” Brown said. ​“But you don’t let fear stop you from doing your job.”

Brown said he is reserving judgment about the actions of the officers in the cases of the men killed in Louisiana and Minnesota. But, as an African-American man and a father of an 18-year old son who has a physique that some might see as ​“imposing,” he’s worried.

“I’m an African-American man first,” Brown said. ​“I’ve been on the job 20 years. I could retire. And when I one day take this title off, I’m going to be just an African-American man. And it hurt to hear those death moans. And what about that baby who witnessed that? As an officer I reserve my judgment, but my initial response as a black man is feeling angry and frustrated.”

He said the death of the officers in Dallas was a huge and tragic incident, but officers also know at some level that every day they go to work that dying in the line of duty is a possibility. But as the native New Havener who grew up in the Hill section of the city looked out on the protestors gathered at the corner of Chapel and Church streets, he was still encouraged about community-police relations in New Haven.

“I’m glad that everyone is acting accordingly and able to come out and demonstrate and protest injustice,” he said. ​“I’ve got a lot of faith about here because we know each other.”

New Haven resident Julius Dennis said though people were protesting on the Green he saw their anger as being directed at the behavior of officers in other parts of the country, not local cops.

“I think that New Haven is a model police department in citizen relationships that other communities around the country should model after,” he said. ​“There’s very little friction between New Haven police officers and the common citizen. I think that has a lot to do with the dialogue we’ve established.”

Chief Dean Esserman said it’s been a hard fought effort to develop that dialogue that Dennis referenced, and he thinks that officers are impacted by the back-to-back shootings, too.

“I spent time with officers and I think they’re feeling their loved ones worried about them when they put their uniform on to come to work today,” he said. ​“I think all of us are overwhelmed with the visuals of the last week. There was someone being killed by a police officer or police officer being killed.”

Esserman said people looking to New Haven as a model for other cities need to know that cops and neighbors didn’t build a better relationship overnight.

“I think we often look for fast answers,” he said. ​“I know here in New Haven it took time. You’ve got to stay the course. I want people to feel the pride we have in wearing this uniform. We have to understand the pain that others feel when they see it. And we still have a long way to go to see each other in this community that we call America.”