Lawmakers Amplify Beaver Hills Crime Call

Send us more cops.

Crime-weary Beaver Hills neighbors sent that message loud and clear at a Norton Street press conference that sought to keep the spotlight on a recent uptick in violence.

The half-hour presser took place Wednesday afternoon outside of Congregation Chabad Lubavitch.

Organized by Republican State Sen. and Minority Leader Len Fasano along with a group of predominantly Orthodox Jewish community members, the press conference drew attention to a recent spike in neighborhood violence, which has included shootings, break-ins, muggings, and three successive burglaries of the Norton Street synagogue.

Several dozen community members braved the gray and drizzly afternoon for the public safety presser. Most were Orthodox Jewish men, joined by State Rep. Toni Walker and Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks, both of whom are African American and live in and represent the middle-class, racially mixed neighborhood.

At the center of the event was Nir Bongart, a Beaver Hills resident who recounted how he was jumped and violently attacked by a group of four young men on Bellevue Road last week while biking home from a friend’s place, a story first reported last week in this Independent article.

Bongart (pictured) told the crowd, and a phalanx of TV news reporters, that someone hit him in the back of the head with what felt like a two-by-four, causing him to fall to the ground. He said the group of young men then kicked him in the face and all over his body between 15 and 20 times.

“I realized that if I didn’t stand up and fight, I would be dead in this situation,” he said. ​“God helped me to stand up. I tried to protect. And they went away.”

Bongart said he doesn’t view this incident as an attempted robbery. ​“For me, this was attempted murder.”

He also said he doesn’t view the attack as explicitly anti-Semitic, as he doesn’t think the group of young men could have known that he was Jewish just by looking at him from the back at night.

Like many who spoke out at Wednesday’s press conference, Bongart called for increased police presence in the neighborhood. ​“More officers on the street will definitely prevent crime,” he said.

Mendy Katz agreed. The neighborhood has seen a rise in petty crime, shootings, and even anti-Semitic attacks, he said.

“The police department has been responsive,” said Katz, who organizes an active WhatsApp neighborhood discussion group. ​“However, violence does not belong in Beaver Hill or in any community. Hate does not belong in this community or in any community. We must work together to stand up against violence and hate, and make our communities safe for all.”

Katz said the immediate solution to this public safety call is ​“more police. We need to have better patrols.”

Fasano (pictured) said that that was exactly why he called the presser. The Republican state senator, who represents Durham, East Haven, North Haven and Wallingford, is a longtime friend and tennis partner of Bongart.

“I’m here because Nir is a friend of mine,” Fasano said. ​“I was supposed to play tennis with him on Sunday. He canceled. I found out why, and it bothered me a lot. It brought it really close to home. Nir is a great guy. And when he told me what happened, he felt that this neighborhood has seen such an increase recently in crime, that as a legislator, I wanted to speak out. But mostly as his friend.”

As the press conference played out, Fasano and Guilford Republican State Rep. Vincent Candelora revealed that they had other reasons for being present at the presser — specifically, to criticize the police accountability bill passed by the state legislature this summer amid Republican objections. (See more on that below.) Among other measures, the bill limits police chokeholds, requires officers to intervene if colleagues violate citizens’ rights, and makes it easier for victims to sue officers who engage in ​“malicious, wanton or wilful” misconduct.

But the actual community members who spoke up again and again Wednesday continually depoliticized the conversation and turned it back to the most local of issues: Neighborhood public safety. An increase in petty and violent crime. And an expressed desire for more cops on the beat to deter such dangerous activity.

“We don’t have a bone to pick regarding specific bills,” said Beaver Hills resident Abe Vail (pictured). ​“We have one purpose. We want safe streets for everyone. We don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent.”

Wednesday’s presser was not about politics, he repeated. At least not for the people who live in the community.

“We’re all registered Democrats,” he said. ​“But it’s not a political issue. It’s just a safety issue. We want cops. We want safety. Whatever that takes, we’re just gonna keep pushing until we get it.”

The presser was the third such community gathering in Beaver Hills in recent weeks to focus on the crime increase, which has been a citywide —and nationwide — issue this year.

Click here and here to read about a passionate in-person neighborhood meeting, and a two-hour Zoom meeting in which residents poured their frustrations out to the mayor and Police Chief Otoniel Reyes.

“The Community Is Suffering”

Before and after the formal press conference itself, Beaver Hills residents spoke up about how they and their families have increasingly felt less and less safe in a neighborhood they cherish for its close-knit community and diversity.

Zalman Deitsch (pictured above) said that he and several friends were walking down Norton Street towards Whalley recently when someone walked up and punched one of his friends in the face.

He said he called the police and asked what to do. ​“Do we try to chase?” he recalled asking. What if that person was drunk or stoned? He said the attack happened in daylight.

Deitsch said he knows several people who have witnessed shootings take place right across their street

“It’s traumatic for a community,” he said.

Moshe Szender (at left in picture), who lives on Colony Road, said that his car has been broken into a handful of times. His said his wife no longer walks outside alone after 4 p.m. out of a fear of being mugged.

“We just want a little more police presence,” he said. That should not only deter violent crime, he said, but also the running of red lights and speeding through crosswalks.

“The fear is things are going to escalate,” he said. ​“The community is suffering.”

Szender said this call for public safety is ​“not a racial thing.” His three closest neighbors on Colony Road are all African American, he said. And he regularly speaks with them about how the neighborhood has gotten more dangerous as of late.

“If there’s no safety,” said Eli Raskin (at left in photo, with Chezkel Edelman), ​“nothing else matters.”

Vail agreed. ​“If we don’t have the budget for safety,” he said, ​“then we don’t have a budget.” He said he knows that crime has increased all around the city, and said he does not think that Beaver Hills should receive any kind of special treatment.

“I feel terrible” about the rising violence in every neighborhood, he said. ​“But that doesn’t make it right” that it’s also happening in Beaver Hills.

His preferred solution? ​“Just presence” of more police.

Tilting Towards, And Away From, Politics

During their formal remarks during the presser, Republican state legislators Fasano and Candelora made abundantly clear that they were in Beaver Hills Monday to do more than just stand side by side with a community suffering from a crime increase.

They also came out to criticize the recent police accountability bill championed by Democratic New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, passed by the state legislature, and signed by Gov. Ned Lamont.

“Now the latest episode of this effect of the police accountability bill, where we are tying the police officers’ hands, we are now seeing more violence in our streets,” Candelora said. ​“It is time that we as a legislature need to go back and examine these policies for the safety of our communities.”

Fasano agreed. ​“Rep. Candelora and I have asked the governor to take the police accountability bill and have that date pushed back to next session,” he said, ​“to allow the legislature to get their hands around it because we believe that’s resulting in less police officers being recruited for the job, police officers retiring, which leaves a smaller force.”

They were asked about what the connection is between the police accountability bill, which was passed in late July, and the overall increase in violent crime in New Haven, which has played out all year and peaked in the early summer, well before the police accountability bill was taken up by the legislature and (similar to pandemic violence spikes in cities nationwide).

Fasano reiterated that he was in New Haven Wednesday not just as a state legislator but as a friend of Bongart.

“You’ve got to bring awareness” to what happened to Bongart and the uptick in violence in the neighborhood, he said. ​“I saw your story in your paper on it. But other than that, there wasn’t much out there on the issue. I thought that was rather telling.”

“We need to have a serious, frank discussion” at the legislature and all over the state about the recent increase in violence in cities like New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport,” Fasano said.

Candelora was even more candid about being at Wednesday’s presser primarily to criticize the police accountability bill.

When asked why he showed up Wednesday, he said, ​“Sen. Fasano and I have had concerns about the impacts of the police accountability bill and asking the governor to suspend [it]. I think this is an opportunity to start that conversation today again.”

When asked if he was exploiting a community crisis to bash a bill he didn’t like, Fasano returned to his friendship with Bongart. ​“I don’t care what district he’s in. I’m not running again. This is an important issue, and I think it has to be brought up.”

State Rep. Toni Walker pivoted the conversation away from state politics when asked about why she was present.

She lives just three blocks away, she said.

“I’m here to represent and hear from my constituents. We’re here for public safety. We want the police to protect and serve our communities.

“We are always going to have bills that are going to have division. But the point is we cannot abdicate our responsibility to the people of the neighborhood. This is where we live.”

Walker said that she no longer walks her dog outside ​“after a certain hour” out of a fear of increased crime.

“We should not try and make this divisive,” she said. ​“We should be coming together to figure out how do we correct” this crime uptick.

Alder Marks agreed. She turned to Bongart, looked him in the eye, leaned forward and said, ​“Nir, what happened to you, I am so sorry. That should happen to no one.”

“I care about my neighborhood,” she continued. ​“I care about who lives next door. … I want you all to know that together we stand and divided we fall. We are here because we care, and we want something done. And if we come together and use everything we have, change will come.”

Reyes: ​“We Need Police Resources”

After Wednesday’s press conference, Chief Reyes told the Independent that this most recent community call for more officers underscores that many people throughout the city want more, not fewer, police.

“We need police resources in order to manage the needs of the community,” he said. ​“This is an issue of limited resources. This is an issue of not having enough resources to meet the demands of the community. An integral part of community policing is presence.”

Having more cops on the beat means more public money dedicated towards the police budget, not less, he said.

Since the start of the recent spike in crime in Beaver Hills, Reyes said, the department has made two arrests of people involved in shootings. The police have identified the individual responsible for the synagogue break-ins and are working on making an arrest, he added. He said police stationed extra officer presence at the synagogue this past weekend during services, and has been in close communication with community leaders.

“We’ve been doing this throughout the city, not just Beaver Hills,” he said. He thanked residents for reaching out and engaging officers. He stressed that this ​“banner year” of Covid-19, social uprisings, and increased crime has strained already sapped police resources.

“Our engagement and our commitment to our community remains the same,” he said.

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full press conference.