Fresh off the plane from a trip to North Carolina’s High Point, Edgewood Defense Patrol organizer Eliezer Greer (pictured at left) brimmed with enthusiasm for innovative policing techniques he found — the same techniques New Haven’s top brass aim to observe in their own trip next week.
Greer, an outspoken critic of New Haven’s police chief, preempted top brass’s own trip South for a peek at a innovative community policing model which the city hopes to replicate here.
“It was an awesome day,” said Greer, who met with High Point’s police chief and toured the city.
Greer has clashed with top police brass over claims that community policing in New Haven is “dead” and called for New Haven Police Chief Cisco Ortiz to resign. Greer made headlines by forming an armed citizen’s patrol in the Edgewood neighborhood and summoning the Guardian Angels into town. Greer made sure he caught the ear of High Point Police Chief Jim Fealy before New Haven’s police brass arrived, “to give [Fealy] the opportunity to learn the background of New Haven from the community’s perspective.”
In his 24-hour trip earlier this week, Greer surveyed policing practices in the town. He said he was impressed by the Community Against Violence program, where drug dealer suspects are rounded up, put in a room with posters of arrestees, and given personalized packets of evidence of them performing crimes. Then each would-be-felon is given a chance: Another room holds a host of social services to guide them away from crime. (Click here for a prior Independent story detailing High Point practices).
Greer applauded the method for “building trust” between the community and cops — a trust he says “is totally broken down here in New Haven.” Trust is built, and community members feel comfortable giving info to the cops, because they see a transparent process in which “everyone is given a fair second chance.”
Greer said the most important lesson he picked up down south was a lesson in deployment.
The difference Greer said he found between the Elm City and High Point is that under Fealy’s philosophy, cops spend less time “racing from call to call” and more time on “proactive community policing” initiatives like CAV.
“Trust will only happen due to an entire reshuffling of deployment in New Haven,” concluded Greer. “None of that’s going to happen until there is a restructuring of deployment, not running from 911 call to 911 call.”
One idea Greer gave for easing off 911 calls was to have minor calls — such as reporting a stolen bicycle — be recorded by trained civilians through a 311-type municipal services line instead of handled by police.
Reached by phone for comment, New Haven Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts (pictured) defended current deployment strategies. “We are using the officers that we have to staff the deployments that we think are necessary,” he said. “When we had many more officers and resources from the federal government, yes we did have more” foot patrols, but “we have a tremendous amount of walking beats, and overall crime is down.”
Has there been a shift back to emergency-call-driven-deployment since the height of community policing under former Chief Nick Pastore? No, said Smuts: “Nick Pastore knew that if you had an emergency call, you had to respond to it.”
Had the two sides, at least, found common ground atop High Point?
Greer wouldn’t go so far. A fundamental restructuring of deployment would be “beyond the realm of Chief Ortiz,” he maintained. “If you don’t have deployment, and you don’t have trust, then all these initiatives” — such as modeling pieces of High Point’s practices — “are superfluous.”
Smuts said he had “No interest in responding to personal attacks” on the chief. He remained “very interested in understanding the innovative techniques” of High Point when he and the chief head south on Monday.
As for Greer’s trip? “We’re interested whenever private individuals take an active role and are engaged in policing matters,” Smuts said.