Homicide Memorial Opens; City ​“Will Heal”

More than 100 community members who have lost loved ones to gun homicides celebrated the opening Saturday of a new healing space that brings awareness to 45 years worth of city firearms victims.

The ribbon was cut for the grand opening of the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing Dedicated to Victims of Gun Violence in the shadow of West Rock.The green space at 105 Valley St. was created by three moms who lost children to local gun violence as recently as 2013.

The moms, Celeste Robinson Fulcher, Pamela Jaynez, Marlene Miller Pratt ​‚hosted the celebration and concluded their four-year journey of developing the memorial garden. (Read a full story about the mom’s stories and their work on the project here.)

New Haveners gathered in the park with pins, shirts, and posters picturing the faces of the loved ones they lost throughout the years. The names of all gun violence victims appear on bricks in a walkway leading to a meditation space.

Families and friends dusted off their loved ones’ bricks to clearly show their names and ages to capture their pictures.

Families captured pictures with their loved ones’ memorial bricks. The crowd gathered in the park’s outdoor learning space to listen to the reading of each name of lives lost to gun violence since 1976.

Hill resident Angel Hubbard stopped to take pictures of several bricks making up the walkway Saturday. She lost two cousins and two brothers to gun violence and described being in the park as ​“beautiful and sad” all at once.

She lost her seven-month old cousin, Danielle Taft, in 1994. Before heading out she met Mayor Justin Elicker for the first time and asked him about her cousin Divonne ​“DJ” Coward, who was killed this past October.

“Where were you?” she asked wondering why Elicker didn’t reach out to the family after Coward’s death on Exchange Street.

“It must have slipped through the cracks,” Elicker, who often attends funerals and wakes for homicide victims, responded and apologized. He then gave Hubbard his phone number to arrange to talk to the family. (Elicker later said he did reach out at the time to the victim’s aunt, who was listed as the person of contact for the family.)

During the Saturday dedication ceremony, a lineup of dozens of speakers read the names of lives that have been lost over the decades. As the names read echoed through the park, the crowd called back, ​“Say their names.”

Organizations with mentorship programs, like Men Achieving Leadership, Excellence, and Success (M.A.L.E.S) and Phi Delta Kappa Sorority, tabled at the ceremony to offer their services to families with youth.

The leading moms ended the event with a performance of ​“Where Peaceful Waters Flow” by Gladys Knight & The Pips.

“Now we have the garden of healing dedicated to victims of gun violence to bring healing to this city. New Haven we will heal,” Miller-Pratt said.

Watch the full ceremony below.