Connecticut cities grapple with spike in gun violence
Pandemic, heightened distrust of police complicate response
As summer gun violence spikes in cities across Connecticut, leaders are pushing for resolution with a community strained both by a lingering coronavirus pandemic and a heightened distrust of police and public institutions.
In New Haven and Hartford, shootings are up compared to the past year and New Haven was dealt a further blow when a spate of shootings left three dead and more than a half dozen injured this past week. Hartford’s homicides are down slightly, but shootings are up 20% over last year, according to recent statistics from the city.
In an impassioned plea to residents, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the community needs to come together to root out the violence.
“The behavior of the people involved in that violence is something, as a community, we cannot accept,” Elicker said at a news conference called to address four shootings that happened in a span of six hours Tuesday. “We need to work as a team to ensure members of the community have the support and accountability they need to put the guns down.”
While anti-police protests have been common across Connecticut, gun violence puts a sharp focus on the role of police to both get guns off the streets and seek justice for the victims.
“Our police department is well equipped to respond but we cannot do this alone,” Elicker said. “We need your partnership to share information and support our commu
nity.”
As Hartford faces its own problems with gun violence, community relationships that range from partnerships with anti-violence organizations to connections forged between officers and residents remain a bedrock of the city and its police department’s response to the shootings.
“In the midst of a nationwide spike of gun violence that has not spared Hartford, they are as important as ever,” Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said.
Summer violence flares up again
A summer spike in gun violence remains a reoccurring issue in Connecticut cities. As temperatures rise, tensions in these communities do, too.
But Connecticut is not alone. In cities across the nation, gun violence has been high through the early weeks of summer this year. And months of a coronavirus pandemic have heightened the issue.
“One thing, for sure, we had anticipated a significant spike in violence, those of us that do this work, as soon as the isolation and quarantine were eased,” said Andrew Woods, a longtime violence intervention worker who heads Hartford Communities That Care.
Economic stresses were prevalent before the virus, but since the pandemic, the situation for many has worsened.
“Now you have folks that have stress levels and they have economic challenges that they can’t seem to get out of, that even increases the likelihood people are going to be dealing with conflict … it was going to be problematic,” Woods said.
Pastor Kelcy G.L. Steele of New Haven’s Varick Memorial AME Zion Church echoed what Woods said.
“People are just trying to survive, sadly to say our communities … became an episode of survival of the fittest, doing whatever they can do to survive,” Steele said.
Tyisha Walker-Myers, the president of New Haven’s board of alders, said there is a connection between where unemployment, poverty and COVID-19 infections are most prevalent and where gun violence is most impactful.
“This doesn’t just happen for a reason. We have the roadmap in New Haven. We have tons of maps that will show you were gun violence will happen, where unemployment will be high, where food insecurity will happen,” Walker-Myers said.
But along with the pandemic, a renewed focus on police violence and racial inequality has arisen in recent months following high-profile police killings across the country that shows an increasing distrust of police and public institutions.
These misgivings, along with distrust of other institutions, have existed for many years, Woods said.
“Our current climate right now has increased that distrust,” he said. “Those are the other challenges out there: You’ve got the pandemic, the new civil rights efforts going on right now … and obviously you have the epidemic of gun violence in the cities right now. We are fighting against three or four epidemics at one time. “
Community partnerships bridge the gap
As an ever-isolated and distrustful community is called on to partner in efforts to quell the gun violence, relationships with community and faith-based leaders are bridging a gap to get everyone working toward safer cities.
“If we don’t talk, if we don’t come to the table together, we are never going to get through this. Not only are we dealing with a pandemic, both COVID and racism, all of that is playing into the new developments with the shootings,” said Steele, the New Haven pastor.
In Hartford, where police have forged yearslong relationships with key community partners like Mothers United Against Violence, COMPASS Peacebuilders and Hartford Communities That Care, calls go out to these seasoned intervention specialists when violence unfolds to better connect with those impacted.
In Hartford, those organizations often connect people with essential supports offered within the community and leverage longstanding local relationships that can break a cycle of violence.
Woods, who has done violence response work in the city for three decades, said: “It has to be done with folks that live in the community and with partners who are out here… other than that it will not work.”
Woods’ organization, anticipating a spike in violence amid the pandemic, called on donors who helped support six additional positions, better equipping them to respond to the needs of both of the victims and the community.
“It’s imperative that we do get them those supports they need that they don’t become repeat victims or perpetrators,” he said.
Bronin credits the partnerships, along with a strategic investment in technology, with helping city police detectives make arrests in 11 of the 13 homicides this year in Hartford, but also preventing further violence.
“Those partnerships have in many case saved lives by helping us identify situations where there’s a risk of retaliation or break that cycle through the intervention of key trusted partners,” he said.