1K Protesters Take Over I‑95

One thousand Black Lives Matter protesters and their allies marched from Broadway to the Green — and then on to the highway, with police standing back.

No one got arrested. No one got hurt. Until, later at the police station, some protesters started throwing bottles at the cops. Others tried to enter the building, and cops pepper sprayed them to deter them.

The protesters gathered at noon on Broadway; pretty much of all them wore masks to guard against the spread of Covid-19. Most said they had no idea who had called for the march. An anonymous person had put out the call on Facebook and Twitter.

The call: Protest the death of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, and take to the streets to demand change.

The march came at the end of a week that has seen anti-police brutality protests across the nation, including on the mayor’s front lawn on Friday night. Sunday’s outpouring of people onto the streets to protest police violence represented just the most recent, and most local, instance of a nationwide phenomenon — with similar mass protests taking place in Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, Louisville, and elsewhere. 

The most immediate catalyst for these demonstrations was a viral video showing a white Minneapolis police officer killing a 46-year-old African American man, George Floyd, on Monday by pinning him to the ground and pressing his knee into his neck as Floyd pleaded, ​“I can’t breathe.”

Black Lives Matters organizer Ala Ochumare (pictured) said her group wanted to make sure this was a legitimate protest, and when it did, she and others decided to join in it. She emerged as the lead organizer of the event once it started, beginning with a speech in front of Campus Customs.

“They have painted the concrete with our blood. I’m tired,” she said.

“We didn’t organize this,” Ochumare told the crowd. ​“But it sounds like folks want to march!”

March they did, first from Broadway onto Elm Street.

No one was sure where the march would head next. Police on motorcycles kept a distance from the march, redirecting drivers from side streets.

The protesters decided to go from the Green, then to the police station.

Along the way, down Church Street, they passed without incidents past rows of officers and police cars blocking intersections. They crossed onto the Route 34 Connector mini-highway — away from the PD, toward the I‑95/I‑95 on-ramps.

They needed to decide: Block the Q Bridge? Or I‑95?

A few motorocycle cops waited at the exchange, with back-up in the distance.

Around 1:15, protesters stoppped on the mini-highway. The leaders prepared them for a possible confrontation, advising them to buddy up, share phone numbers, link arms. They directed white protesters to the sides and front so police couldn’t just aim for black protesters.

“White people, we need you on the outside. I don’t want you in the middle. We love you all. We need you,” said one of the leaders taking turns with the bullhorn, Ashleigh Huckabey.

The march leaders, who hadn’t organized the protest in the first place but were now responsible for leading 1,000 people into a possible confrontation with potentially lethal consequences, were making decisions on the fly about where to move next, while keeping the crowd together and focused.

“I know we angry. I know we mad. They want us to get crazy so they can shoot us, mace us. We’re gonna use our heads,” directed Ochumare (pictured above conferring with fellow march leader Amelia Sherwood).

City police drove away and let the protesters onto I‑95 South.

The state police — who four years ago set a dog on some of these same unarmed protesters at a march that included the Route 34 Connector — watched as marchers poured onto I‑95’s southbound lanes. Traffic soon stopped in both directions.

An air of jubilation arose on the highway as the group spread out toward Exit 46.

Organizers again asked the white allies to go to the front of the line.

As an eerie standoff ensued with police.

Then, with state police cruiser lights flashing down the road by the I‑95/I‑91 interchange, marchers sat and locked arms silently while Sam Cooke’s ​“A Change Is Gonna Come” played.

The state police officer lights flashed by the entrance to I‑95. Protesters also formed a line blocking I‑95 North.

“This is what the road to liberation looks like,” Ala Ochumare said as people sat down on the highway and she stood up and gave a speech.

Fellow march leader Sherwood said the plan was both to claim the highway — and leave at some point so as not to leave people in distress. ​“We’re taking up space and also recognizing the need of people. There are elderly in the cars,” said Sherwood, who lives in New Haven and works as dean of social and emotional learning at Elm City Montessori School. She, Ochumare, and Asheligh Huckabey took turns with the megaphone making sure the crowd stayed together, stayed determined to meet any police resistance, and remained peaceful.

After a while, around 2:45 p.m., the march resumed back off I‑95, past a line of state troopers. The marchers marched up to the cruisers, which the troopers then pulled back. A trooper told the Independent the plan was not to arrest anyone as long as the demonstrators remained nonviolent, which they did.

On the way back on the Route 34 Connector, the march assumed a festive air again, of triumph.

“I’m so proud of y’all. This is our city. We took the streets of New Haven,” Ochumare declared to the marchers. ​“We fighting for black and brown bodies. This is our movement. These are our streets.”

“This is what community looks like!” the marchers chanted.

“The power of the people don’t stop!”

At One Union Ave.

The march proceeded to the police station, where officers stood at the top of the steps in a line and protesters amassed in front of them.

Hundreds of protesters made their way off of the highway and over to Union Avenue, where they filled the steps and the street outside of police headquarters.

“No justice, no peace!” they shouted. ​“No racist police!”

Roughly 50 uniformed officers stood silently behind a yellow chainlink barrier separating the top of the steps and the entrance to the building. They wore masks, and tasers, and watched and listened as the protesters made their demands.

People Against Police Brutality organizer Kerry Ellington led the crowd in a call and response recitation of the specific demands that the protest organizers want to see.

This was not simply grieving over the killing of George Floyd. It was also not simply outrage over more local instances of police shootings, such as when Hamden and Yale police shot at Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon in Newhallville.

This was a set of demands: to end law enforcement as it currently exists in New Haven.

“The symbolism here is that there’s a barrier between the people, between the community, and the place we pay taxes for,” Ellington said into her megaphone.

“New Haven prides itself, the police pride themselves, they brand themselves, as community police officers. Does this look like community policing? Does this look like community policing?!”

“No!!” the crowd thundered in response.

Ellington said that the group’s first demand is that the mayor and the alders ​“work speedily, work fast, work expeditiously to end the triple occupation of policing in New Haven.”

“Are you all with me?!” Ellington asked.

“Yes!!” the crowd responded.

That ​“triple occupation,” Ellington said, came from a memorandum of agreement between the city, Hamden, and Yale allowing the latter two police departments to patrol in New Haven.

That’s what led to the shooting of Stephanie Washington, she said.

“We need you to cancel the memorandum that allows Hamden to police in New Haven and that allows Yale to police New Haven residents!”

The second demand, Ellington stressed, involved a 20-year effort spearheaded by her mentor in police accountability protesting: Emma Jones, the mother of Malik Jones.

“Why do we not have a civilian review board?!” Ellington thundered.

The alders passed legislation creating one in early 2019. That legislation allows for the board to have subpoena power.

Over a year and a half later, she said, it’s still just an idea and not a reality.

“We still don’t have that board operating because the city is taking its time!”

Connecticut Bail Fund organizer Jeannia Fu urged the crowd in a chant of, ​“Defund the police!” The department has a budget of $43 million, she said.

That’s nearly 10 times the budget for the city’s Health Department, she said.

“And this is a pandemic!”

Bottles Thrown; Pepper Spray Deployed

After 6 pm the tone and temperature of the protest changed dramatically.

The organizers called white protesters to come to the front of the line to form a sort of human shield between the uniformed police officers and the majority black crowd.

After that shift, white protesters moved to the front, linked arms, and started screaming at the officers.

Some from the back of the crowd started throwing water bottles at the police officers. The bottle-throwers, and some of the most verbally aggressive protesters, appeared to be white. Officers said that some protesters also threw batteries.

The officers quickly put on face shields and took out full body plastic shield, forming a barricade between the protesters and the building.

People started running from the front in panic.

Meanwhile, some protesters tried to enter the building. The cops pushed them back, in part, by spraying pepper spray.

One of those sprayed was Derek Cote, 24, of Burlington, Connecticut. He said he came to the protest after attending a similar event earlier in the day in Shelton.

“We expect we can enter a public building that we pay taxes to maintain,” Cote said. ​“It was called upon that we should enter the public because we have a right to. We started pushing on the line. They hit me with pepper spray. They pushed me against a railing. They pepper sprayed me again. It hurts fucking bad.”

A fellow protester poured milk on his eyes to ease the pain.

Cote had a rolling pin with him. Asked why, he responded, ​“Got to fight back, maybe?”

Ellington said she got pepper sprayed in the face for trying to walk through the front entrance to get inside the building. She said she wanted to talk directly with the mayor, whom she said was in the building.

Instead, she said, she was greeted with pepper spray to the face. A number of other protesters clutched their faces in pain as well.

“This is not what deescalation looks like!” Hamden town council member Justin Farmer shouted through a megaphone.

He implored Elicker to come out, and said he would be calling him tonight.

“This is not us!” one protester shouted. They are violent, not we!

There is one way to change the power dynamic between the people and police, she said. And it’s not through violence.

“It’s by voting them out!” she shouted.

“This Little Light Of Mine”

As dusk approached, the crowd outside the police station dropped to around 150.

Some of those who remained seemed less interested in the strategy and demands espoused by Ellington and the march’s chief organizers earlier in the day, and more interested in calling names.

“Class traitors!” shouted one protester at the police. ​“Class traitors! Who do you work for? Who do you protect? You protect capital!”

Another took the megaphone and leaned in as close as he could to the row of officers. ​“You’re gonna burn in hell with gasoline drawers!” he said.

During one particularly heated moment, as the crowd braced for potential retaliation by the police, a diverse group from the back of the crowd started singing, ​“This little light of mine.”

Around 20 people picked up the tune for the next minute or so.

The song seemed to cool the temperature of the protest, if only temporarily.

“I’m with it,” said one New Havener who stood in the middle of Union Avenue and wanted to remain anonymous for this article. ​“But if it becomes violent, that’s not what I’m about.”