Spectators at Hillhouse-Hamden turn phones to record one of numerous fights breaking out in the stands.
Melanie Espinal File Photo
Schools security chief Reddish: “Everyone breathing. We’re not attending a funeral.”
New Haven was lucky no one got shot.
School and security officials offered that assessment as part of a briefing about a series of brawls that broke out last Friday at a Hillhouse High School football home game at Bowen Field against Hamden High.
The briefing — and a debate about a resultant new policy requiring students to be accompanied by parents or guardians at school sporting events —took place at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.
New Haven Public Schools Director of Security Thaddeus Reddish said the “potential for gunfire was there” at the game.
The Friday game drew about 4,000 spectators, 1,500 of which were kids ranging between eighth grade and high school ages, Director of Physical Education, Health, and Athletics Erik Patchkofsky reported at the Monday meeting. There was almost a “Thanksgiving size security presence,” he said.
“We did have a group of students that came, and they didn’t come here to watch the game,” Patchkofsky said.
During the game a series of fights broke out, which security worked to break up. Hillhouse Principal Glen Worthy reported that he alone broke up three to four fights, which included no Hillhouse students. One Hillhouse student later revealed that he had fought with students from a different school at the game after being chased.
“I’ve been in New Haven for 28 years and grew up in New Haven and grew up in Newhallville. Friday night was probably the first time I felt unsafe,” Worthy said.
Worthy added that most of the students involved in causing the chaos were from schools outside of New Haven.
After being kicked out of the game for fighting, several students found a way back in by going through the woods and climbing fences to continue fighting, Reddish reported.
New Haven cops joined in to help the school security officers deescalate the situation. This led to students fighting with police. The fights spilled into the parking lot.
The NHPD brought in members of the intelligence unit Friday to help assess the incident.
“Right now is the bigger picture than just this football game. There are homicides taking place in this city, as everyone knows. But what a lot of people don’t understand is a lot of the kids who were involved in these homicides, they were there,” Reddish said.
The event ended in no arrests or gun violence.
“Everyone breathing. We’re not attending a funeral. And we don’t have to sit and justify why somebody was killed,” said Reddish, a retired NHPD assistant chief. “The vicious cycle we need to stop is 14 year-olds killing 14 year-olds.”
During half time, the gates were closed to avoid adding in more people to the unsafe situation, Patchkofsky said.
New Attendance Policy Rolled Out
Afterwards, schools Superintendent Iline Tracey gathered an administrative team including Patchkofsky, Worthy, and Reddish to come up with the temporary policy as a result, which ended up with the requirement of parents or guardians accompanying students to sporting events.
Patchkofsky and the team said the policy will not be permanent. It will last until they “determine how to get our students into these activities and keep out people that come here not for the events but to cause chaos.”
On Monday the temporary policy was sent to NHPS parents with a note calling it a safe solution to the incident that still allows families to attend upcoming games.
“We’ve never seen something like this before in New Haven,” Superintendent Iline Tracey said. “We had to do something. We had to take some action for the safety of all involved.”
Patchkofsky learned from student workers that the fights were planned at the event to settle neighborhood disputes.
He added that he doesn’t foresee future fights happening for similar issues at games with non-neighboring towns. The next potential issue would be with the future game between Cross and Hamden on Oct. 29, Patchkofsky said.
The new policy states that all students attending the games must be accompanied by a parent or guardian to attend NHPS sporting events until future notice.
BOE member Darnell Goldson argued that the policy should last only a week, in an effort to avoid punishing all NHPS students for the acts of a few.
“You don’t make a policy this far-reaching based on one moment,” he said.
Goldson added that all parents don’t have time to join their kids at football games.
“You continue to do stuff like that, you’re going to force these kids into acting how you don’t want them to act. They’re going to start getting angry about being punished about what these people did. And being seen as perpetrators as opposed to victims,” Goldson argued.
As part of a longer-lasting solution, Patchkofsky said, he is working on is getting school staff and administration to be at the game gates to identify problem students who are likely to cause problems. He said staff however are asking for more time to get to know students throughout the school year to do so.
BOE member Tamiko Jackson-McArthur said she decided not to attend the game Friday last minute, and is glad she did so. She agreed that the temporary policy is the best first step. “Anything could have happened that night. We know what the police and the mayor are dealing with right now in trying to figure out what’s going on with the violence that we’ve had,” she said.
Should They Have Made Arrests?
Goldson asked why no arrests were made at the event.
Reddish said the “officers’ hands were tied” due to dealing with minors and actively avoiding using force, detaining, or arresting the students.
Reddish added that several of the teens fighting came to the game with younger siblings, which could have resulted in a risk of injury to a minor charge.
“We’re not helping them by letting them get away with this stuff. We’re not helping by ignoring it and calling them kids,” Goldson argued. “If it’s not a game it’s somewhere else.”
The NHPD were not called to arrest or criminalize youth, but were rather called to help deescalate the situation to avoid “potential gunfire,” Reddish said.
In addition, Goldson raised concerns that punishing all students “for the bad acts of a few” criminalizes all students. “I can’t imagine how these kids feel by being kind of accused because they’re a part of the school system and they’re Black,” he said.