It’s not Dixwell’s fault and our best men are on it, Police Captain Steve Verelli (pictured with neighborhood Alderman Drew King) told community members gathered Thursday night in concern over the spate of youth violence this past week. But brainstorms about gun control and renewed curfews turned to frustration at the lack of programs in place to head off problems. “Why do they always wait until something happens to have a meeting?” demanded local resident Dilias Ratchford.
After a shooting and slashing episode outside a Foote Street house party last Sunday and more shooting at Shelton Avenue and Ivy Street Tuesday, King, who represents the 22nd Ward, called a meeting at the Ashmun Street community building Thursday to get the facts from police and shape a response with neighbors.
“I really want the community to come together before the summer starts,” said King. “We need to get a dialogue going and find a way to get to our teenagers before they start shooting, killing, joining gangs.”
“This has been a very, very stable community,” said Captain Verelli. He was invited to the meeting to replace fearsome rumors with facts. For instance, the five “stabbings” reported after Sunday’s incident were five un-fatal slash-wounds when a man denied entry into a party “got tough guy on them” and started swinging a knife. The shootings were in the ankle and the buttocks and not meant to kill. The neck wound from the second incident was caused by a flying piece of fence, not the bullet itself, the captain said.
“You’ll see a spike in violence based on nothing to do with this neighborhood, except that it’s where the people happen to live,” in this case the Dixwell youth for whom the “Newhallville men” came looking.
“Ofttimes it’s about a girl, ofttimes it’s about money. I wouldn’t say gangs,” Verelli claimed.
In an effort to defuse some concern over the big bicycle groups Monterey Homes residents noticed making a comeback after last summer, Verelli said, “Nobody in this room as a kid didn’t move in great waves as well.” He reassured residents that they were in some of the best hands in the police department, and called the handling of the Shelton/Ivy Street situation an “outstanding piece of police work.” The Foote Street party reject would soon be identified and arrested, he promised.
Only some of the problems identified in community feedback were specifically local: a persisting Dixwell/Newhallville beef, with Hillhouse High School the breeding ground; bad lighting in Monterey backyards and around the Bristol Street senior homes; rowdiness at Ashmun Streets Cardinal Club & Caf√©. To these, Verelli was immediately responsive: We’ll send an officer up the Bristol Street elevators. We’ll put another in the Cardinal Club parking lot.
Other problems represented larger patterns and were harder to solve.
Like witness non-cooperation. Kids’ unwillingness to tattle, Verelli suggested, explained why there were no straight answers yet out of Sunday’s party despite all who saw. “The kids are too close. Getting a good cooperative witness can often be a challenge.”
Carolyn Sicher from the Yale Child Study Center, who declared her office open to any violence-disturbed youth, agreed. “People don’t want to be seen talking to us and thought of as a snitch.”
Another tough problem is parents without control. “In the middle of the night, these parents don’t know where their kids are,” said Sheneane Ragin, another organizer of Thursday’s meeting [pictured, at left, with Ward 22 Democratic Town Committee co-chair Cordelia Thorpe]. Verelli said there are no laws “with any teeth in them” to combat what was just “bad parenting. We tried to enact a curfew but it wasn’t, ahem, politically correct and it got killed.”
Guns, especially, represent a problem that’s hard for one community to tackle alone. “There are just too many guns out there, and unfortunately, that’s how today’s kids settle disputes,” said Verelli, who would “love to see a good old-fashioned rumble like the old days.” On the question of where the guns kept coming from, he said the police department is doing “sophisticated research,” with forensics follow-up on every recovered weapon, but “with very gun we take out there are two to replace it.”
The “To-Do” List
Assembled Dixwell residents were quick to add another problem to the list: a lack of funded programs for kids.
<img class=“photo” alt=”“ src=“http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/upload/2006/04/dougie%20less%20emphatic.jpg” width=“315” height=“236” title=”“ / “The solution’s simple: give the kids a place to go that they can depend and rely on!” said Doug Bethea (pictured), the volunteer coordinator of the hundred-member Nation Drill Squad Drum Corps based out of Monterey Homes. He said every year he hears “the mayor keep talking about money for youth initiatives” and applies for funding for his group, and each time he gets a “Come back next year.”
Remembering his own Dixwell childhood jumping out of a second-floor window when he was “on punishment” to go join activities at the Dixwell Community “Q” House, Bethea said re-opening the facility or something like it is urgent. “Where is the community center in Dixwell or Newhallville? There’s nothing for the kids to do!” If there are “legal issues” keeping the Q House from re-opening, he wanted to know about them, and get to work on a solution, he said. “Not just more meetings. We as a community are going to die in a meeting. All we do is meet!”
Cordelia Thorpe agreed that “kids need a safe place of support.” And now, added Dilias Ratchford, a Monterey Homes resident, board member, and mother. “For years we’ve been talking about the same thing. It’s good to get together, but we’ve got to come up with solutions. They talk over you if you speak the truth they don’t want to hear” like Doug Bethea does, she said.
Jonathan Bailey, the housing authority’s resident services coordinator for the neighborhood and another who grew up on programs at the Q House, wondered if the new Dixwell-Yale University Community Learning Center might take off and become a substitute.
“Success will hinge on its ability to create and sustain strong programs,” Bailey said of the new center at 101 Ashmun St. in a building shared with the Yale police department, set to go into full-program mode this summer with offerings like a bike shop and computer literacy classes. The community, still feeling betrayed by the uncertainties swirling around the Q House, will need time to get familiar with the building and the coordinator, Makana Ellis.
“Time will tell,” said Bailey. “ It always does.”