Paul Bass Photo
Quentin on the sidewalk after tasing.
A confrontation that began with an allegedly raised middle finger ended with a 37-year-old man tased and lying on the sidewalk, and passersby debating with cops about how best to handle mental health-related policing and business owners’ loitering concerns.
The incident unfolded Friday at 11 a.m. between Sherman Avenue and Norton Street on Whalley Avenue outside Triple A Pizza Restaurant.
The Independent listened to the first part of the incident unfold via a witness’s cell phone, then pieced together more of what happened at the scene.
Quentin was walking by the restaurant when he allegedly raised a middle finger at patrons eating inside.
Patrol officers were nearby. They were working overtime in response to complaints by shop owners that people loitering on the block have been harassing other people on a daily basis.
The officers approached Quentin.
Quentin was agitated.
“Lay me out! Lay me out. Lay me out my nigga!” he exclaimed.
(Quentin, the officers involved, as well as subsequent witnesses and shop owners who engaged in discussion on the block, are all Black.)
One of the officers asked Quentin what he was doing.
“What am I doing? I’m not loitering. I’m waiting for a fucking ride. The bus stop is right here.”
According to the police, Quentin then struck at one of the officers and knocked his body camera to the ground.
“Put your hands behind your back,” one of the officers demanded. His tone was calm. “Put your arm behind your back.”
“I ain’t doing nothing! I ain’t doing nothing! You started it. I ain’t saying nothing. You remember me,” Quentin told one of the officers, whom he said he had encountered before in the neighborhood.
Referencing the restaurant, Quentin told the officers, “I didn’t go in there, my nigger …”
“If you’re going to be out here, you’re going to have to learn to be civil,” one of the officers responded.
“I am being civil. … I ain’t doing nothing!”
At one point three officers moved to restrain Quentin and take him to the ground, according to police at the scene. They said he fought them. Three tried to tackle him.
“We couldn’t get him down,” one officer later reported. “He had to be tased.”
Quentin was tased.
Cops called for an ambulance.
As he lay on the ground and onlookers kept a distance, Marnie Hebron and Nijija Ife-Waters (pictured) pulled up and got out of their car. They were en route to deliver donated Thanksgiving turkeys to hungry families when they saw the commotion.
Hebron began recording the scene on her phone. She asked why the man needed to be tased.
As she was informed about the confrontation, she argued that Quentin’s behavior “showed he has a mental illness … You ought to know … You’ve been out here long enough.” She argued that this confrontation should not have ended in a tasing and looming arrest. Her remarks tapped into a broader conversation taking place in New Haven this year about whether police are best equipped to handle encounters involving people with mental health problems; the city is currently working on creating a mobile “crisis team” to include mental health workers in the mix in more calls like this one.
At one point she asked the officers to help Quentin get off the cold ground. Officer Derek Cohen (pictured) placed a coat on Quentin. Sgt. Paul Finch (who had arrived after the tasing) helped him sit up, though Quentin chose to lie down again. He said he was in pain.
“Quentin, you want a mask?” Hebron called out. She hadn’t previously known him, but learned his name while conversing at the scene.
Quentin nodded.
“Somebody want to get him a mask” to help him avoid getting Covid? Hebron asked the officers, one of whom complied.
There it stood until around 11:45, when the ambulance crew arrived …
… and took Quentin to the hospital. “My chest and my throat hurt,” he said as he was placed into the ambulance.
Police said they expect to charge him with disorderly conduct, interfering with police, and possible assault. (Quentin is awaiting sentencing on three felony charges to which he pleaded guilty, according to the state judicial database: risk of injury to a child, second-degree strangulation, and violation of probation. He had been released from custody on a promise to appear in court. This also isn’t the first time he would have been accused of interfering with police.)
After the ambulance departed, officers remained on the scene, discussing bystanders’ concerns. No one raised voices or interrupted or insulted each other.
Hebron said because she hadn’t seen the original confrontation, she wasn’t criticizing the actions of the individual officers present. Rather she questioned why officers were the ones to respond to complaints like this, potentially escalating the situation.
“That’s a mental health issue. I don’t think it should have gone this far. He got aggressive when they approached him.”
Sgt. Milt Jackson told Hebron that business owners have asked for the extra patrols because it has been difficult to do business with people harassing others on the street. He argued that the sidewalk should be “kept clear so people can shop comfortably.”
One of the shop owners on the block, listening in (and declining to be identified) on the police-bystander conversations, echoed the concern. “It’s every day,” he said of problems outside his store.
“These are the same people who patronize these businesses,” Hebron said of individuals questioned for loitering or creating a nuisance.
Police have also come under pressure from the Beaver Hills neighborhood to step up patrols after a series of violent and threatening incidents involving people on the street.
Waters, an activist who presides over the Citywide Parent Team in New Haven, said her biggest concern was why it took 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
[Note on Independent policy about names: We do not generally name people who have been arrested or show their faces unless we get their side of the story. We felt we did get Quentin’s side of the story denying he was doing anything wrong and criticizing the police. However, we chose to leave out his last name and a photo of his face to protect his privacy for a number of reasons: Because of a lack of an overriding public interest in his identity being shared or subject to internet searches. Because this case may involve mental-health concerns. And because the case did not involve violence against the public. We recognize that these are judgment calls that sometimes have no clear right or wrong answer; that some readers have long disagreed with our policy of not naming arrestees; and that informed, sincere people have differing views on the subject. Read more about that debate, and the Independent’s position, in this article.]