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.
Jabez Choi photos
U-ACT protesters: "Somebody was criminalized for getting by.”
Watkins was one of a dozen members of the Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT) to participate in that protest on the front steps of the state courthouse at 121 Elm St. at around 9:30 a.m.
He and others, including homeless rights organizers Billy Bromage and Mark Colville, then walked inside to Courtroom A to wait for Robert Cardone, Jr. to appear for his first court hearing since he was arrested and incarcerated on Aug. 30.
Cardone has been charged with three felony counts of breach of peace, a misdemeanor count of first-degree criminal trespass, and a misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal mischief. Those charges stem from an early Friday incident when he tossed three rusty metal canisters in various spots around the municipal office building at 200 Orange St. – leading to police shutting down parts of downtown traffic and evacuating City Hall as they investigated the cans as a potential bomb threat.
On Thursday, Watkins and other protesters drew attentions to Cardone’s explanation to police — that he had just been collecting cans that morning, and that he didn’t mean any harm. The police report detailing Cardone’s arrest also stated that he has been a regular presence at the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop bottle return.
Watkins said he knew Cardone as a “fairly quiet guy” who slept on a bench on Elm Street near Dwight Street for the past six months. Watkins said he lives nearby, and would frequently see Cardone on his own walks to and from home. “It’s a sad sight to see every night when I’m going inside, I’m seeing him sleeping on the bench.”
Cardone has been held at Whalley Avenue’s New Haven Correctional Center on a $25,000 bond ever since his arrest.
“Obviously the law is being used arbitrarily. They’re clearly treated as if they don’t have the same rights as other people,” Bromage said during Thursday’s protest. “Somebody’s picking up cans, which is basically their way of getting by, and was criminalized for getting by.”
Cardone was not present in person at his own hearing Thursday. The public defender representing him in this case, Fressia Waldron, told state Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti that, for some reason, Cardone had not been transported from the Whalley Avenue jail to the Elm Street courthouse for the hearing. Iannotti ordered Cardone to be transported to the courthouse for his next hearing, this upcoming Monday.
After Cardone’s hearing was pushed out a few days, Colville and Bromage met with Waldron outside the courtroom. Colville called on Cardone’s lawyer to request a lower bail, to urge for the charges to be dropped. This was clearly a mistake, he said in reference to the can toss-turned-bomb scare. He insisted that Cardone shouldn’t have been arrested, and he definitely shouldn’t be in jail as he waits for his case to be heard.
Cardone's lawyer, public defender Freesia Waldron.