Sam Gurwitt Photo
• Crash mayor’s office.
• He says he has “seen enough to recommend” firing cop who shot at unarmed couple.
• Promises to get back to protesters on independent investigation.
On Friday, Leng announced that in addition to the State Attorney’s Officer investigation that was already underway, the Hamden Police Department had launched its own internal investigation into the shooting of Stephanie Washington by Hamden Police Officer Devin Eaton and Yale Police Officer Terrance Pollock.
For the protesters, however, that is not enough.
At around 3:30, New Haven and Hamden activists and residents gathered outside the Miller Memorial Library to make posters, which they would later bring to the mayor’s office with a list of demands.
As protesters young and old sat on the cement and drew block letters with the markers that lay about, a few told their stories.
Pedro Hanlan and Michaellie Gonzalez (pictured) sat by a raised bed of bushes and drew their signs. At the top of Hanlan’s was a drawing of a light incased in a triangle, and below it the message: “Wake up brothers and sisters, Your life matters.”
“The light,” said Hanlan, “represents not what is but what could be.” He said he envisions a world in which people are at peace with themselves and the people and things around them.
Hanlan, who is from New Haven, said that his view of police changed when he had an encounter with them. “Honestly I always looked up to law enforcement,” he said.
Then he was arrested. He said he had come to terms with what he had done and knew it was wrong. The officers stripped him down to his boxers and put his hands in handcuffs and his feet in shackles.
He recalled telling the officers, “I feel like a slave.”
One of the officers responded: “You’re the one in shackles, not me.”
That moment, he said, changed his perspective on the police. He said that moment left “a fire inside me,” but that he felt sorry for the police, “because if only they knew. If only they could see not just the half side of things, but the whole picture.”
At around 5 p.m., community organizer Kerry Ellington gathered the crowd of around 60 into a circle to explain the demands that she and other organizers planned to deliver to the mayor. In addition to an independent investigation into the April 16 shooting and the immediate termination of Officer Eaton, they also demanded the town launch a separate independent investigation into the death of Jarelle Gibbs, who died in a police-chase crash in August.
After a few speeches, the crowd took to the sidewalk, marching south on Dixwell Avenue to the Hamden Government Center. “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” they chanted as they walked, along with: “Ain’t no power like the power of the people / cause the power of the people don’t stop.”
Once they arrived at the town office building, they filed through the doors and up the stairs to pack into the mayor’s office, chanting “Justice for Stephanie and Paul.”
After about a minute, Leng came out and greeted the protesters.
“We are here to demand that you recommend to your police commission that [Officer Eaton] be immediately terminated, and we are also here to demand that you recommend an immediate investigation that is independent into the lethal shooting of Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon,” Ellington told Leng. “And we also are here to demand not an internal investigation — we want to be clear about an independent investigation” into both the recent shooting and the death of Jarelle Gibbs.
“I have seen enough to recommend termination,” said Leng. “Now we have to see what happens with the criminal investigation and our local investigation.”
As soon as he finished, the crowd replied: “No! Terminate now! Terminate now!”
Protesters, led by Ellington, reiterated their demands: that Leng immediately recommend, on camera, that the Hamden Police Commission fire Devon Eaton and launch an independent investigation.
Leng said that he wasn’t sure whether it was possible for the commission to launch such an investigation.
“I don’t think that our police commission has done this,” he said. He promised protesters that he would find out if it is possible.
“I’ll find out for you tomorrow. I’ll find out for you tonight,” he said, adding that he would talk to a police commissioner and the town attorney and get answers to the protesters as soon as he did.
Though Leng said that he would look into all of the protesters’ demands, he did not agree to any of them then and there. “I won’t do anything right now until I talk … with the town attorney,” he said.
Protesters continued to push. “It is fair” to continue making these demands, said Ellington, “as a black woman in this country when our people are being gunned down in cities like Hamden and people like yourself say you don’t know what the powers are of your own police commission.”
Eventually, Leng went back into his office, and the protesters filed out into the parking lot.
“You can never tell, but Mayor Leng, he seems sincere and I want to believe him,” said New Haven community organizer Shelton Tucker (pictured). At least Leng came out to talk, he said, which was more than some mayors had done in the past.
Shelton said that his family left Hamden about 20 years ago because of the police department. He recounted a time when his brother was arrested, and when his mother went to see what was happening, the police surrounded his mother and arrested her too for assault on a police officer. “It’s a culture of harassment that’s been going on in Hamden for a very long time,” he said.
Read previous stories about the April 16 shooting below.
• Hamden Cop Shoots Woman In Newhallville
• Cop Video Released; Hamden Never Told New Haven It Was Crossing The Border
• Protesters Storm PD Seeking Answers In Officer-Involved Shooting; Officials Mum
• Cop Who Shot Was Trained In New Haven
• Shot-At Man Plans To File Suit; Clerk Describes Original Complaint
• Outrage Over Shooting Shuts Down Streets
• Elicker: Remove Griffin From Shooting Probe
• Post-Shooting, Focus On Suburban Cops
• Griffin Obtains Search Warrant For Shot-Up Honda; Harp Stands By Griffin
• Top Yale Cops Seek To Rebuild Trust
• Public Seeks Independent Probe
• Farmer Backs Independent Investigation
• New Havener Of The Week: Kerry Ellington
• Probable Assault Crime Cited For Search
• Hamden Police Launch Shooting Investigation
• Cop Who Shot Had A Clean Record
• Top Cops Confront Concerns In Newhallville Walk