“Honk For Aymir! Can I Get A Beep?”

As a judge continued a hearing on whether to try a 17-year-old as an adult for allegedly participating in an attack on a 79-year-old professor, fellow students rallied on the teen’s behalf outside the courthouse.

With the help of the Citywide Youth Coalition, New Haven students organized the rally in support of 17-year-old Aymir Holland Thursday morning in front of state Superior Court at 235 Church St. They got a civics lesson in real time while supporting a peer in his quest to avoid a 61-year jail sentence.

Holland is being tried as an adult for allegedly helping to attack the Yale professor in East Rock last November. His supporters are trying to get the case moved to juvenile court.

Latoya Willis, Holland’s mother, attended the court session with Jason Goddard, an attorney she hired to represent her son. Goddard declined to comment after a pretrial hearing in the case Thursday in Judge Patrick Clifford’s courtroom and encouraged Willis to do the same. The hearing date was pushed to Sept. 9.

Holland was charged with felony counts for his alleged participation in the attack: first-degree assault, first-degree assault on an elderly person, first-degree robbery, second-degree larceny, reckless endangerment, and conspiracy. On Nov. 27, 2015, Holland met a friend downtown, who was joined by a group of men he didn’t know well, according to Willis. Two of the men then attacked the professor, punching and kicking him until he blacked out, and then stealing his wallet and backpack. In the arrest warrant affidavit, one of the alleged assailants said Holland stomped on the professor as he lay on the ground after being attacked. The professor was subsequently hospitalized.

Willis said her son was terrified during the attack and didn’t participate. (Read more about that here.)

Because the charges were so serious, his lawyer will have to argue against the state prosecutor why Holland should be tried as a juvenile, not an adult. (The New Haven Register’s Randall Beach has more here on the legal aspects of the case.)

Older teens tried and convicted as adults go through the adult prison system, where they are less expensive to house compared to the cost of a juvenile facility. Some experts argue certain people should get adult prison time no matter their age; others say a 17-year-old’s brain is still developing and should not be considered comparable to an adult’s.

Students Thursday stopped people walking by the courthouse to ask for signatures for a petition calling for Holland to be tried as a minor. Briyana Mondesir, an incoming sophomore at Coop High School, was having trouble getting responses around 9 a.m., an hour before court started.

“A lot of people are saying they’re in the judicial system, or they’re lawyers and can’t get involved,” she said. ​“Some people said they didn’t have enough information” about the case, and ran off.

Mondesir thought about how to change her tactics. She began to tell passersby upfront that Holland was charged at 16 years old and being tried as an adult. That got her more attention. After two hours, students collected around 50 signatures.

Latoya Willis said the students’ energy in supporting her son was ​“exhilarating.” She encouraged them as they started a series of chants on the corner in front of Superior Court on Church Street, led by adult organizers Marcey Moore and Addys Castillo, executive director of the Citywide Youth Coalition.

“It’s not every day you see people outside rallying,” one security guard said, watching from inside as teenage protesters milled around the courtroom steps.

Students proudly showed off homemade T‑shirts and posters with variations of the slogan ​“Bring Aymir Home” written in bright block letters.

“Honk for Aymir! Can I get a beep?” organizers shouted to drivers zooming by, with some success.

Jillian Valeta, an incoming Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School junior, said she felt a sense of connection to Holland when she first heard about his case at a Citywide Youth Coalition meeting a couple of weeks ago.

She listened to his English teacher Mark Fitzpatrick from Highville Change Academy talk about Holland’s commitment to anti-bullying and his ​“gentle” nature — and was convinced that she had to help him. ​“It was heartbreaking to see,” she said.

Valeta sent Holland a letter at the Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire asking if he wanted to practice Mandarin with her. Holland has been in the institution for seven months with bail set at $250,000. His family finally raised enough money to hire Goddard, a private attorney, instead of relying on public defender Angelica Papastravros.

Holland studied Mandarin at Highville, and Valeta is now learning it. It’s difficult, she said, to remember how to write out the characters without practice.

She planned to go to a Citywide Youth Coalition meeting planned for Thursday evening, learning from Yale Law School students how to handle an unplanned, involuntary encounter with the police. ​“We don’t have law in our school, just basic government class,” Valeta said. ​“I know my Miranda rights, from watching movies or seeing TV shows,” but little beyond that.

Willis reiterated the importance of students learning their rights. She is getting a thorough education on the legal process by being thrust into navigating it; the learning curve is steep. She had never really been an activist. ​“I am now,” she said.

Support from the community will keep her involved well beyond her son’s trial, she said.

Students packed the courtroom with her as she waited for the hearing to start. And they waited outside the room when the judge decided to close the hearing to the public.

In the hallway as they waited, Moore directed them to hold hands and form a crooked prayer oval. ​“Aymir will stand strong. He’ll live through this,” she prayed, tears falling from her eyes as she prayed. ​“We’ll still be here no matter how many doors they’ll close.”