Paul Bass Photo
Officer Valentin approaches the Toyota.
Jason Newton insisted he never saw the speed limit sign.
Newton, who’s 33, was coming off the overnight shift working with autistic children in a group home when he drove his Toyota southbound on a wide, winding stretch of Yale Avenue in Westville. He was en route to see his mom.
Officer Hector Valentin was down the road, near Edgewood School, wielding a 20/20 TruSpeed laser gun. The police department has assigned Valentin, a 19-and-a-half-year veteran of the force, and other patrol officers to catch speeders outside schools now that the academic year has started. (Click here to read about that effort.) The department has pledged to “do at least a school a day” depending on the availability of motor officers, according to police spokesman David Hartman. It is concentrating on schools like Edgewood, where buses remain on the street when students disembark, and on schools from which complaints have come.
Valentin’s 20/20 recorded Newton Wednesday morning traveling at 45 miles per hour. The speed limit is 25. So he pulled Newton over.
He calmly informed Newton that he would be receiving a $186 ticket.
Newton was displeased. As Valentin walked back to his own car to write the ticket, Newton maintained that he hadn’t noticed speed limit signs. He described the ticket as an injustice that called into question how the government spends the people’s money.
“They sit here and set up these little stops. It’s not enforcing anything,” he insisted. “I’m a taxpayer. I get frustrated about how they tow people’s cars that live in New Haven, because they owe taxes. Our roads are like shit! Our kids have no after-school programs. They give out these tickets, and you have to go to court, without worrying about the big things.”
Across the street, Valentin reflected on his assignment as he wrote the ticket.
“I have kids, you know?” he said. “My kids go to school. I want kids to be safe.
“We’re not here to be the bad guys. We’re here to educate people.”
As Valentin spoke, Officer John Palmer (pictured) was pulling over a second speeder. She took it better.
“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been speeding,” said the woman (who preferred not to be identified). She had a child in the back seat; she had already dropped one kid off at school, in West Hills, and was heading over to the other’s school. It’s no fun to get a ticket. But, she said, she deserved it.
Meanwhile, a deer emerged from the woods in Edgewood Park.
“Look at that!” Newton exclaimed from the front seat of his Toyota. The deer sauntered onto Yale Avenue. It did not exceed the limit as it crossed the road. It did not receive a ticket, for speeding or for jaywalking.
Newton’s spirits had brightened by the time Valentin returned with the ticket. The officer pointed to the school down the block. He spoke about how the cops are trying to keep everyone safe — the kids, as well as drivers who travel too fast.
They shook on it.
“That’s a good officer,” Newtown said of Valentin before driving off.
To which Valentin rejoined, “That’s a good sport.”