“I think they fightin’ over self confidence,” said Rietta, a Hillhouse High School sophomore, weighing in on the recent spate of youth violence in Dixwell and Newhallville. “They get along in school, but once they get out, they got the hood. It’s like they take on a different identity.”
Students hanging out in front of Hillhouse on Sherman Parkway, a few blocks from Dixwell Avenue, didn’t know the exact story behind recent retaliatory shots. According to police, five Newhallville teenagers in a green minivan shot a man from Dixwell on Foote Street on Easter Sunday. Another man from Edgewood Avenue was also shot that night. Also on Easter, a man who tried to enter a Henry Street party was barred from the house and ended up slashing five people with a knife. Two days later, two young Newhallville men were shot at on the corner of Shelton Avenue and Ivy Street.
Police Capt. Steve Verelli downplayed the events as “anomalies” —‚Äù isolated, personal disputes in an otherwise a “stable, safe community.” None were fatal shots, and bullets landed in places such as the ankle and buttocks, indicating the shooters weren’t out to kill, he said. Individuals were “singled out obviously, based on the wounds.”
As to the motive of the Foote Street shootings? “I don’t think we’ll ever know.” Just “neighborhoods having neighborhood disputes.” Teens interviewed outside Hillhouse didn’t uncover particular motives behind recent violence, but they had a few ideas about what spurs neighborhood feuds.
Rietta (pictured above) said she’s seen fights break out over small arguments that start in Hillhouse hallways. “They don’t get over it. They bring it outside.” Outside, they call for back up. “Then they do the hoods jump.”
“They’re letting them know what hood’s the best,” jumped in Rietta’s friend Ny, also a sophomore. Ny lives in Dixwell but doesn’t get into allegiances. “I don’t rep none of that.” Coming from New York, “I’m used to gangs and stuff but not little groups that fight a lot. They fightin over blocks —‚Äù it’s like three blocks!”
Paul, a senior from Westville, shrugged at the recent disputes. “It’s stupid. They still don’t know what they fightin for. It’s all the same stuff. It’s not even about drugs —‚Äù It’s about where you’re from. They follow behind old fights from back in the ’80’s.”
“It’s spring, that’s why,” cut in sophomore Keneata Nicholas from Dwight. “They shoot up everybody.”
Loshonda Williams walked with a bunch of friends over the softball field back to their Dixwell homes. The guys in the group scattered —‚Äù “I’m outta here!” —‚Äù when this reporter approached. But Williams had all the answers on fights between the Tribe (Dixwell) and the ‘Ville (Newhallville).
“It’s gangs,” she blurted out. “You come from different hoods, we gonna clap you. You in my hood I’m gonna ask where you from. It’s a lot of drug-related, too.”
“We tryin to have teen parties, but people want to fight over little things, like what you got on” —‚Äù shoes, chains, colors —‚Äù “and who don’t got it.” She plays basketball with kids from all over the city, but has her loyalty: “Dixwell —‚Äù that’s the spot, yo.”
“I think if Bush stop crackin on the pimpin and realize what kids need” —‚Äù an open community center where kids can play basketball, then “It’ll be better. We just need more attention. We don’t got nothing more than the streets. They buildin’ more schools and they don’t have nothing for the kids,” she said.
Freshmen Jasmine Reed (pictured) and Connie Gibson chatted as they made their way down Henry Street back to Dixwell after school. They both try to stay out of neighborhood quarrels.
“I try to ignore it —‚Äù I do my after-school activities and go home. Tribe, Tre, Ville —‚Äù I think it’s real stupid. Most of the boys into the violence,” though, not the girls, said Gibson. “I don’ know what they fightin about, but it’s stupid.”
Three guys in their early 20s, standing in a driveway near the school, lent their post-high school perspectives. “T.”, a self-proclaimed gun-toter who’s “pledged his loyalty” to the Tribe, bemoaned how “fist-fightin has become gun violence.” He has no “real” friends from outside the Tribe. “Everybody’s cool but it’s where you live separates you.”
“That’s just the mentality that’s forced upon them because of the environment we’re in,” put in his friend D., who said he’s “not part of this ‘hood stuff.” “It’s passed on by generation.”
“New Haven is a bigass pot,” cut in his friend, W., who had stepped back a minute to take a drag from a joint. “Everyone’s all clashin. There’s not going to be any way to unify on the lower level.”
“People go to your hood and bust a cap just for fun. It’s goin back farther than 50 Cent, it’s like Scarface and stuff like that. It was imbedded in us a long time ago, and if you didn’t make the decision a long time ago to get out of it, it’s too late,” said T.