Laura Glesby Photo
Angel Hubbard: “DJ’s life mattered.”
As the city mobilized to investigate the murder of another military veteran killed by gunfire in New Haven, Angel Hubbard couldn’t stop thinking of her cousin DJ — and of the silence she felt in the aftermath of his shooting five months ago.
Divonne “DJ” Coward — a loving father, an herbalist, a health nut, and a passionate political debater — was murdered on Sep. 30, 2020 when he was 27 years old, on a Fair Haven street that saw several shootings last year.
On Saturday morning, his family gathered outside City Hall with anti-violence organization Ice the Beef to make sure that DJ — one of 20 local homicide victims last year — won’t be forgotten.
Family Photo
Divonne Jaquel Coward.
Like Kevin Jiang, the 26-year-old Yale graduate student whose murder in East Rock last week has garnered national attention and spurred a cross-state search for a person of interest, Coward was a young veteran excited for a new career path.
By all accounts, both men — just a year apart in age when they were killed — prioritized family and community, and were devoted to their Christian religion.
“Kevin did not deserve to get murdered. Nobody deserves to get murdered,” Hubbard said. Having witnessed a sense of urgency that the city, community, and press have devoted to Jiang’s killing, she called for the same attention to be given to the murders of Black and Brown New Haveners like DJ.
Hubbard noted that within days, the U.S. marshals posted a $5,000 reward for information leading to a person of interest in that case. “What made his life matter more?”
Another one of DJ’s cousins, Luquaia Opara, echoed this sentiment. “There’s so many people who get killed in New Haven and nothing is done. It’s just another Black life,” she said. “‘Oh, he was in the streets, he was selling drugs’ — that wasn’t the case. And even if it was, it shouldn’t matter.”
Hubbard, in October, wearing a shirt memorializing her cousin.
When asked about criticism like Hubbard’s and Opara’s at a recent press conference — which the Independent has heard from a number of commenters in recent days — Mayor Justin Elicker responded that the New Haven Police Department takes every homicide seriously. “They face a pretty challenging time in getting people to share information and identifying leads. … When there is information, we do everything we possibly can to track [the murderer] down,” Elicker said during a Wednesday evening press briefing.
The mayor noted a disparity in public attention surrounding the Kevin Jiang case. “There’s been a lot of public interest in this case and I think we should reflect upon that as a society,” he said. “Every loss of life in New Haven is tragic.”
LaQuiva Jones, at the far right, stands alongside Ice the Beef President Chaz Carmon (center) and DJ’s family.
LaQuiva Jones, the mother of 18-year-old Dashown Myers who was killed a year ago, attributed the slower pace of other homicide cases not to negligence from city officials and police, but to a pressure on witnesses to remain silent.
On Saturday, she called for those who have information about unsolved homicides to speak up. “Stop acting like you don’t see nothing,” she implored through tears. Otherwise, “we’re gonna continue to bury our babies. We’re gonna continue to have homicide after homicide after homicide.”
Opara later echoed these words. “Somebody knows what happened.”
Jones spoke to a loneliness that families of gun violence victims often face. The New Haven community doesn’t come together the way it should, she said; it feels like no one gets outraged, until a homicide happens to someone they love.
The 23rd of February — the anniversary of Myers’ death — is coming up. “My heart races” thinking about that soon-approaching date, Jones said.
Myers was one of 20 people murdered in New Haven in 2020, including Kiana Brown, Dayshon Smith, Kaymar Tanner, Howard Lewis, Nathaniel Henry, Secundino Ramirez, Roberto Rivera, Robert Lee Joines, Nancy Rivas, Luis Nelson Perez, Joel Price, Ricky Newton, Carlos Gonzalez, Sterling Timmone, Jerome Moye, Divonne Coward, Natosha Gaines, Allen Leeshawn Freeman, Tylee Bellamy, and Ibrahim Shareef Jr.
Jiang was one of six people known to have been murdered in New Haven in the first month and a half of 2021, including Alfreda Youmans, Jeffrey Dotson, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, Marquis Winfrey, and Joseph Vincent Mattei.
Watch the entire rally below: