Thomas Breen photo
Salsa’s Luis Palomino (center) with Mayor Elicker, State Rep. Candelaria, and Fair Haven Alder Crespo on Wednesday.
Kevan Bonilla’s homicide memorial at Poplar and Lombard.
Salsa’s owner Luis Palomino has seen the recent rise in Fair Haven gun violence instill fear in neighbors and workers alike — as well as drive away customers who would otherwise be eager to stay, sit down and eat at his popular Grand Avenue Mexican restaurant.
Palomino offered that local business owner’s perspective Wednesday afternoon during a Grand Avenue canvass focused on a months-long uptick in violent crime in the neighborhood.
Mayor Justin Elicker, Fair Haven police district manager Lt. Michael Fumiatti, State Rep. Juan Candelaria, Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo, and staffers from the city’s Livable City Initiative pounded the pavement to talk with Grand Avenue business owners like Palomino about what they’ve seen in recent weeks.
They also underscored the city’s commitment to quelling the violence through increased walking and bicycle beats, more street outreach workers, and resources targeted through the Project Longevity and Project SafeNeighborhoods programs at people most likely to be involved in a violent crime.
A miniature boxing glove bearing the Puerto Rican flag, at Bonilla’s memorial.
What the city officials heard in response was fear, frustration, and dismay at what has appeared to be a sudden neighborhood-specific uptick in a city — and a nation — that has seen violent crime on the rise since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“There’s just too much violence,” Palomino said, his Spanish translated into English by Alder Crespo. “Just too much.
“I’m Tired, & Our Community Is Tired”
Fair Haven top cop Lt. Fumiatti (right) and Mayor Elicker at Wednesday’s pre-walk press conference.
Recent New Haven Police Department press releases about violent crime in the city underscored just how much of this uptick seems to be concentrated in the Fair Haven neighborhood.
Recent shootings and homicides in the area have included:
• The shooting and injury of a 32-year-old West Haven man Tuesday at 8:09 p.m. on East Pearl Street between Grand Avenue and Exchange Street.
• The shooting and injury of a 56-year-old New Haven man Wednesday at 2:18 a.m. on Shelter Street between Grand and Clay Street.
• The murder of 45-year-old New Havener Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz on Monday at 11:29 p.m. on Poplar Street between Lombard Street and Chatham Street.
• The murder of 14-year-old New Havener Tyshaun “TyTy” Hargrove on Aug. 25 at 10:51 p.m. on Chatham Street between Rowe and Ferry Streets.
• The murder of 20-year-old Bridgeport man Kevan Bonilla on July 10 at 4:10 a.m. on Lombard Street between Ferry and Poplar Streets.
According to the police department’s CompStat report from the last week of August, Fair Haven’s District 8 has seen 42 confirmed shots fired so far this year — a 121 percent increase over the 19 confirmed shots fired by this time last year.
Much of this violence is a “result of a lot of people, where there’s disputes, trying to settle those by picking up guns,” Fumiatti said Wednesday when asked about the cause for this rash of shootings.
“We’re trying to get people to put guns down, trying to resolve disputes without gun violence. … The police department is also seizing guns. We’re taking guns off the street, but we need the community’s help.”
Standing at the corner of Grand and East Pearl Street, right in front of a strip mall parking lot where Tuesday night’s shooting took place, Elicker said that he had spent Wednesday morning at the funeral for Tyshaun Hargrove — the 14-year-old who was shot and killed nearby on Chatham Street two weeks ago.
“I can say that I’m tired, and our community is tired, of going to homicides, of going to wakes and funerals, of talking to family members and community members who have lost ones. These are people who could have had productive lives.” But instead, their lives have been cut irrevocably short by gunfire.
LCI Fair Haven neighborhood specialist Carmen Mendez.
Carmen Mendez, who works for the city as LCI’s Fair Haven neighborhood specialist and who has lived in Fair Haven for the past 24 years, said that she loves her neighbors and has long been drawn to how tight-knit the community is.
“What’s happening is beyond my understanding,” she said. When people seek to resolve disputes with guns, “it is very disturbing to the rest of the community. You have a lot of people who love living here, who own their homes here, who have been living here for a long time, and want to continue living here. They love the City of New Haven, and they love Fair Haven.
“We need to come together as a community and fight this. We cannot depend on just the police department. Each and every one of us is responsible for the wellbeing of our community.”
“Not What It Used To Be”
Mayor Elicker talking with customers at Salsa’s.
The group’s first stop on Wednesday’s canvass was at Salsa’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant at 99 Grand Ave.
Trailed by a crew of TV cameras, Elicker, Crespo and Candelaria walked to the restaurant’s back bar and started talking with customers in Spanish about the recent increase in violence.
Luis Palomino.
Palomino came through the kitchen’s swinging metal door and, masked and wearing a kitchen apron, told the elected officials just how much the rise in crime has affected his business, and the community her has served for decades.
“There’s a lot of drug dealing on the corner,” he said in Spanish, translated into English by the mayor.
The business has been affected because they used to put out chairs on the sidewalk for diners to eat outside. Due to the open-air drug dealing, no one wants to sit outside, and the restaurant has gotten rid of the outdoor dining option.
He also said that customers of his who used to like sitting down and eating at the restaurant are now pulling up in their cars and only getting takehout.
“When they order, they don’t want to stay,” he said, his words translated into English by Crespo. That’s not just because of Covid, but also because they don’t feel safe — especially when people are shot in the parking lot right across the street during dinner time, as was the case Tuesday night.
Elicker with barbers Brian Palomino and Rubiel Rodriguez.
At the barbershop right next door, barbers Rubiel Rodriguez and Brian Palomino told the mayor that they too have seen the rise in crime affect their business, and their quality of life in Fair Haven.
“There’s always issues, all the time,” Rodriguez said. “There definitely needs to be more police.” He said he can’t count the number of times he’s heard from customers about how they’ve been robbed in the neighborhood, or they’ve had someone try to steal their car as they leave the barbershop and head to the parking lot.
‘Has it been worse recently?” Elicker asked.
“It has been. Significantly,” Rodriguez replied.
“I don’t know what’s going on in the last few months,” Palomino said. But, for two lifelong Fair Haveners like himself and Rodriguez, the street crime, drug dealing, and violence in the neighborhood seems at record highs.
Rodriguez and Fair Haven Alder Crespo.
Crespo, another New Haven native who represents Fair Haven’s Ward 16 on the Board of Alders, said he too can’t remember the last time the neighborhood has felt this dangerous.
All he hears about from his neighbors these days, he said, “is shootings, homicides, violence.”
Fumiatti, Elicker, and Lindsey Chacon outside Grand Apizza.
Outside of Grand Apizza, Grand Avenue resident Lindsey Chacon waved down the mayor and neighborhood top cop to tell them what she saw during Tuesday night’s shooting on East Pearl Street.
“I saw the guy. He just dropped to the floor,” she said.
She said she’s eager to move her son out of the neighborhood.
“This is just not what it used to be.”