Protesters call for firings of Officers Devin Eaton and Terrance Pollock.
Paul Bass Photos
Rhonda Caldwell has heard enough about the rights of a cop who fired 13 bullets at two unarmed people inside a stopped car.
“I’m tired of hearing, ‘Make sure the officer gets his due process,’” Caldwell (pictured above) told a rally in downtown New Haven Monday evening held to call for the firing of the officer, Devin Eaton, and a second officer, from Yale. “The same process that Paul and Stephanie got at four in the morning!”
Paul is Paul Witherspoon. Stephanie is Stephanie Washington. They were the two unarmed people inside a car Hamden Officer Eaton stopped on Argyle Street in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood on April 16 at 4:32 a.m. on suspicion (later dispelled) of having committed an armed robbery. Eaton fired 13 shots at the car, sending Washington to the hospital. A Yale officer on the scene, Terrance Pollock, fired another three.
Police accountability activists organized Monday evening’s rally at the Yale Broadway parking island to demand that Hamden immediately fire Eaton and that Yale immediately fire Pollock. As “justice for Paul” and “justice for Stephanie.”
The rally was in part a victory lap. Activists have demonstrated since the shooting to call for the arrests of the cops. After an investigation into the incident by New Haven State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin’s office, Eaton was indeed arrested. Which rarely happens when an officer shoots somebody in Connecticut. (Click here to read a full story on the arrest and the state’s attorney’s report.) Earlier on Monday Eaton appeared in state Superior Court on Elm Street to answer to one charge of felony assault and two misdemeanor charges.
“Look at what we did,” activist Chris Garaffa (pictured) told the crowd. “We got that cop indicted. How often does that happen? All of us did that. … We’re going to win again and again.”
Ala Ochumare (at right in photo) of Black Lives Matter New Haven laid out the central demands: “Direct and immediate” firing of both police officers; no plea deal by the state for Eaton in his criminal case; decertification of both officers so they can’t work as cops elsewhere in Connecticut; and end “the triple occupation” of Newhallville by not just New Haven, but Yale and Hamden cops.
The two officers’ departments have placed each of them on leave since the shooting, pending the outcomes of internal investigations. Officials said they wanted to wait for the state to complete its criminal probe before completing the internal investigations — which are looking at a broader set of potential violations, including of department policies, such as phoning in a stop before approaching a suspect (which neither officer did).
Now that the state’s attorney investigation is done, those other internal probes are continuing. Yale’s Pollock, who said he fired his bullets after he was being fired on (not realizing it was another cop shooting at him), was not arrested.
And as noted by rally speaker Caldwell (a Hamden anti-racism activist and Council candidate), both officials have said they need to follow legal process and labor rules in approaching a disciplinary decision. Yale has hired the firm of former state Supreme Court Justice Chase Rogers to lead its investigation. “Any administrative action taken will be based upon the facts of the investigation,” Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart commented Monday night. Similarly, Hamden officials said they need to follow procedures agreed upon with the police union to complete investigation before taking action. “We’re following due process. We’re follow the letter of the [union] contract,” said Hamden Police Chief John Cappiello, who has enlisted a consultant named Jeff Noble to assist his department’s ethics and integrity unit.
The rally put the April 16 shooting in a broader context. One banner listed names of New Haveners who have been the targets of alleged police brutality.
A second banner listed people statewide who have been killed by cops or died in judicial custody or in other incidents involving police.
Speakers broadened the group’s demands, including a call by activist Jeannia Fu (at right in photo) to abolish police departments: “How do we end police violence? We have to stop policing altogether. We don’t need 21st century policing; we need a 21st century with no police.”
“What we need is systemic change. This is not a ‘bad apples’ problem,” argued TJ Grayson of the Yale Black Law Students Association. “This is a policing problem” that routinely “puts the lives of black and brown people in danger … We need to continue questioning the existence of this kind of state-sponsored violence.”
Emcee Kerry Ellington vowed the crowd will keep up that pressure with weekly rallies in the Broadway spot, a rally this week in Hamden, and presence at a Monday night mayoral debate as well as at a Nov. 13 Hamden Police Commission meeting.