Allan Appel Photo
Saying a mayor or police chief can’t do the job alone, 350 people gathered in Dixwell to take charge of an unfolding campaign to rid their streets of the gun violence that is ripping apart a community.
Dubbing the effort “Enough is Enough,” activists, neighbors, and officials gathered at the Elks Lodge on Webster Street off Dixwell Thursday night to discuss their response to a wave of violence that saw five people killed in eight days in the black community.
In an atmosphere somewhere between a spiritual revival and collective group self-therapy, people expressed deep pain at the loss of young lives. They also laid blame, often close to home.
Blame was generally not directed at the conventional targets, public officials like Mayor John DeStefano and Police Chief Frank Limon, who showed up towards the end of the two and a half hour session and answered residents’ sometimes angry questions.
Rather, this was a community that was resolving to examine the degree to which its own parenting styles, its level of civic involvement, and its self-inflicted wounds were contributing factors as well as the availability of guns, and the regular infusion of ex-felons into black neighborhoods.
More than anything, they were brainstorming ideas both specific and comprehensive that might contribute to a balanced solution.
“Parents have to become parents again,” said Margaret Meynard (at left in top photo, with New Haven Family Alliance head Barbara Tinney), citing one of the most passionately expressed themes of the evening. The mother of six, grandmother of 27, and great-grandmother of 11, all raised in Dixwell and Hamden (and doing well, she said), ought to know. “Parents are afraid to discipline,” she charged.
“Just show up,” cried Tracey Menafee-Hie, meaning what parents must do in the lives of their kids. The mother of a 7, 14, and 20-year-old, she said parents need to show up everywhere in children’s lives, at school, at the movies, at the mall.
“If they’re living in your house, you need to control them. If you can’t take care of your kids at home [get some help, she suggested], don’t blame these people.”
One young man had very practical advice: Open the Q House, he declared. If it needs painting and repairs, and money’s insufficient for that, why not let the young people do the painting?
A woman from Dickerman Street, who described lovingly her block of largely privately owned homes, offered a suggestion after the mayor ascribed much of the violence to problems triggered when so many ex-felons are dropped off regularly at the nearby Whalley Avenue jail.
“Why can’t they be dropped off somewhere else?” she urged. “In suburbia!”
While the mayor described the Re-entry Roundtable and other steps he’s taken, he conceded that the programs thus far were just OK, not great. Plus, he added, it’s ultimately a state, not a city issue, although the city clearly bears the brunt.
Attorney Michael Jefferson (on left in photo with DeStefano and Chief Limon) pushed the tough love envelope to the edge.
“Today black people are doing the lynching of black people,” he said, eliciting a nervous but confirming buzz from the audience.
Then he called for the creation of a violent offender registry: “If you choose to be violent, decent citizens need to know.”
He also called for raising the mandatory minimum sentence for handgun possession from one to three years. “You don’t want to be on this list? Don’t carry!” he declared.
“I don’t want to throw away our kids,” countered Barbara Fair. “We don’t need more kids in our jails. We need something that is multifaceted, that works.”
She called for much more tracking of guns, which she charged is far more vigorous if a cop or white person gets shot. “Our lives are not of value to the government. [So] we need to value ourselves,” she said.
Doug Bethea, who lost a son to gun violence, called yet again for the community to turn away from an atmosphere of no-snitching. “It’s not the mayor or chief of police who’s sitting on Dixwell and watching what goes on. My son was murdered with over 60 people seen it,” he said.
Board of Ed paraprofessional Tyronda James pointed to the mayor and said, “He’s not the solution for my two [teenage] sons.”
She begged for far more mentoring of teenage boys. She demanded that the local franchises of national chains, such as Popeye’s and Dunkin Donuts, contribute money to local youth programs.
Westville activists Alan Felder questioned whether the money the city is devoting to hiring 35 new police officers would not be better spent on youth programs. The mayor demurred.
Although blame of cops and policing was not a centerpiece of the community conversation, there were critical voices. Mark Barrow, for example, lost a nephew, Tyrone Barrow to a shooting on Dec. 6. He said both he and detectives know who did it.
When he spoke to one of the officers, he said, he was told police are waiting for someone to place the guy at the scene. “But who’s going to do that?” Barrows said. He suggested that homicide cops who truly know the community, and reflect it, could find other ways to break cases and make convictions.
Hill Alderwoman Jackie James-Evans begged attendees to join one of four working committees formed to harness and study the ideas of the evening, for implementation in concert with officials. The committees were: legislative, community policing, the role of churches, youth engagement, and parent engagement.
“We are not talking any more. We are about business,” said Lisa Hopkins, one of the evening’s organizers.