‘ IT FEELS LIKE IT’S NOT GOING TO STOP ’

Residents, officials seek solutions to rise in property crimes, gunfire

HAMDEN — For Kim Washington, a 35-year town resident and block watch captain who still is shaken after bullets struck her home in late November, it seems like the reports of shootings, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts in town will not let up.

“It’s like somebody’s playing a movie, and they just keep playing it, and it’s like, when is this movie gonna stop?” she said.

Washington isn’t the only one concerned, as her neighbors also call for action, residents seek change on social media and officials broach the topic, announcing new initiatives designed to deter crime. But in the town opinions on how to reduce crime vary and the town faces serious budgetary constraints.

While aggravated assaults were trending lower as of Dec. 7, 2020, when 89 had been reported compared to 123 in all of 2019, reports of robberies, motor vehicle thefts and shots fired all increased by between 55 percent and 60 percent, according to police Capt. Ronald Smith, spokesman for the department.

As of Dec. 31, 2020, police had logged 72 robberies, 271 motor vehicle thefts and at least 48 reports of shots fired in 2020, as compared to 46, 173 and 30, respectively, in 2019.

The change, Smith said, is significant.

Chief of Police John Sullivan agreed.

“We’re hoping that it is just a one-year spike and the numbers will decrease,” he said, adding that the department has increased high-visibility patrols, launched a crime awareness campaign and taken other steps in response to the trend.

But Sullivan also pointed out that crime tends to fluctuate, and noted that some incident types, such as aggravated assaults, were down last year.

He also warned that some information being posted to social media about local crime is inaccurate, or it’s repeated, giving a false impression of additional incidents.

Sullivan encouraged residents to report crimes to the police.

Mayor Curt Leng said the department “is there and ready to serve.”

“I want our residents to know that the Hamden public safety teams … they are all hands on deck, they are prepared and are always there when a resident picks up the phone and has a crisis on their hands,” he said.

Residents call for action

It was just after 7 p.m. Nov. 29 when Washington, who was at her home on Marlboro Street near Winchester Avenue, heard gunfire.

She’d been getting her elderly father ready for bed, she said.

“When I heard the shots, I jumped on the floor by my dad’s feet. I told my dad not to move,” she said. “It sounded so close. It sounded like literally it was in the driveway.”

Washington would soon find that a bullet had left a hole in her side door, and another had lodged in the dresser of a second-floor bedroom.

She thought she heard around 15 shots, she said later. Her neighbor, Troy McNulty, put his own count at eight.

Both praised the responsiveness of the police, who were there within minutes.

Ten days after the shooting, McNulty and a handful of other concerned residents gathered outside Washington’s home.

He called for change, contending that “everybody needs to be involved” in community solutions.

“We need to see more collective moral outrage,” McNulty said. “Every citizen should care every single time a kid is shot and killed, or shot.”

Toni Foreman, who lives in the neighborhood and serves as vice president of Mothers Demand Action, a nonprofit Washington founded to support those affected by gun violence, also was present.

“I wanna see a change,” she said. “I wanna see a positive change, and I want us to be able to live our lives.”

Developing solutions

“I share our residents concern about the increased criminal activity,” said Leng. “Stats are stats, but when the incidents happen they’re scary and it’s fully understandable that people want to see their government do everything that it can and then some to address it.”

Alongside the pandemic, Leng called public safety his administration’s “top priority” for his administration and said Hamden’s approach must be multi-faceted, incorporating both social services and police initiatives.

From a police standpoint, the town increased patrols in “strategic areas,” according to a Dec. 11 department release that also announced a “holiday patrol detail” which would increase police presence at shopping centers.

“In addition, officers are regularly meeting with local business owners to discuss their concerns,” the release said, noting that residents who wished to speak to an officer could contact police Sgt. William Onofrio at wionofrio@hamdenpd.com.

Block watch meetings and foot and bicycle patrols were ongoing, the release said, adding that some officers were working undercover “throughout the late evening and early morning hours.”

The town also launched a lawn sign awareness campaign to remind residents about crime prevention.

Leng shared sign designs with the Register.

“Don’t leave valuable in your vehicle,” one said. “Prevent car crime by concealing or removing valuables and keeping car doors locked.”

Legislative Council member Brad Macdowall agreed increasing awareness is an immediate measure the town can take to address crime.

But real solutions, he said, “aren’t going to happen overnight.”

Truly addressing crime would require addressing “the lack of economic opportunity that has been incredibly exacerbated by the pandemic,” according to Macdowall, who called crime a “symptom” of a lack of economic opportunity

Economic stressors

The precise relationship between economics and crime remains a topic of debate.

On the one hand, the worst economic downturns of the last century — including the Great Depression and the Great Recession — actually saw a decrease in the overall crime rate, according to a report from National Public Radio.

Crime rates nationwide have fallen steeply since 1993, a report from Pew Research Center indicates.

But studies also suggest that income inequality, long believed to have a connection to crime, can predict homicide rates better than any other variable, according to a 2018 report from the Scientific American.

And a 2014 Bureau of Justice report also found that those living below the Federal Poverty Level between 2008 and 2012 were more than twice as likely to be the victim of a nonfatal violent crime than those in high-income households.

Though alleviating economic desperation won’t be easy, Macdowall said, there are some steps the town can take, such as opening the soup kitchen at Breakthrough Church as quickly as possible, looking into what new job training programs the Board of Education can offer and coordinating with state and federal officials to address the housing crisis.

Justin Farmer, another council member, had his own home struck by gunfire in late September. He lives in the Newhall neighborhood, not far from Washington.

“We have politicians and talking heads talking about gun violence and how we need to get guns out of people’s hands but who are unwilling to deal with the larger issues,” Farmer said, later adding, “As long as you have poverty, urban gun violence is going to exist.”

Farmer argued Hamden leaders should talk seriously about affordable housing, and about “mega-landlords” who neglect their properties.

“You have systematic neglect of these areas, and they become rundown and impoverished,” he said.

Even if they had different ideas about how to address crime, other local officials agreed economic stress seemed a likely factor in crime rates, especially during the year of COVID-19.

“People are hurting right now, and that’s gonna escalate crime,” said Michael Iezzi, chairman of the police commission.

Council President Michael McGarry also spoke of 2020’s challenges.

“The pandemic has created a lot of desperation, and desperation will drive crime,” he said, pointing out that other municipalities were seeing troubling trends of their own.

Marc Pelka, undersecretary of the state Office of Policy and Management’s Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, said last month that shootings in cities such as New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford and Waterbury were up this year.

(In Hamden, aggravated assaults, which include shootings that cause bodily injury, were trending down as of Dec. 7, according to police Capt. Smith.)

The town’s approach to addressing crime must be “two-pronged,” involving both the police and economic solutions, McGarry said.

On the other hand, council member Marjorie Bonadies was not as convinced that economic challenges were to blame for rising crime. Though she acknowledged the pandemic could play a role, she said she would like to see more data on the matter.

Bonadies wondered whether changes at the state level, such as updated pursuit policies, juvenile justice reforms and the police accountability bill, could have contributed to crime. She advocated for an online “town hall” with Hamden’s state delegation to discuss the possible effects of such changes.

“I think the public needs to hear from our state delegation in an open forum,” she said. “I think they owe their presence in a meeting with our townspeople.”

Though “we’ve been hearing that longer sentences are not effective deterrents,” Bonadies said, she was still researching the matter herself.

A 2016 report from the National Institute of Justice indicates strengthening criminal penalties does not deter crime, but “increasing the perception that criminals will be caught and punished” does.

Funding

While Bonadies would love to increase town programs, she said, the money just isn’t there. And as the councilwoman sees it, Hamden already offers “a lot of social services,” such as warming centers, a meals program through the schools, a food bank and programs at the Keefe Center.

Bonadies also contended the Police Department can’t take any more cuts.

Though Washington suggested economic desperation and a lack of access to programs could factor into crime levels, she also wondered whether recent cuts to department funding played a role.

The department is understaffed, according to Washington, who said that makes it hard for police to “protect and serve.”

According to Bonadies, the department is operating with 100 officers as opposed to its usual 107. The council cut seven vacant police positions when it passed the budget this summer, she said, including a deputy chief, a lieutenant and five officers.

It also cut three civilian positions from department funding, according to Iezzi.

And there were other staffing challenges.

At one point last year the department had 14 officers out, some of whom were injured, Iezzi said.

“If money’s available,” Iezzi said, “We would be asking for more … police officers on the street.”

Bonadies, who described herself as a “fiscal hawk,” still would like to see a few department positions added back into the budget this year. That would give the department a “deeper bench” to pull from and reduce the need for overtime, she said.

Macdowall, on the other hand, said he did not think police resources were the problem and advocated for a serious assessment of department spending.

“I think we need to stop spending overtime policing things like homelessness and addiction,” he said. “You can’t fix homelessness and addiction by policing them.”

Farmer contended the Hamden Police Department is overfunded. Spending money on social workers, he argued, would be a more efficient way to deter crime and cost the town less money than police officers.

The town’s patrol officer salaries range from approximately $68,000 to $89,000 annually, according to Iezzi.

Sullivan said he was open to ideas, noting the department recently completed a feasibility study of how social workers might work with police.

“I do believe that police officers are asked to do a lot, and we do a lot of training … but we’re not as qualified to deal with mental health issues as social workers and people who are in that field,” he said “That’s why I have no problem with partnering with experts in those fields.”

Sullivan said he would like the town to hire more officers and social workers but acknowledged there are budgetary constraints.

He also said the state of the force’s fleet is in “a dire situation” and must be a priority.

Leng said the town needs more police resources but also needs to wrap more social services into its approach to public safety — part of what he calls “enhanced public safety.”

New initiatives may be on the horizon, as the town looks at the possibility of providing “direct” mental health services in the “very near future,” according to the mayor.

“We need some additional resources in our Hamden Police Department, and it’s not a this or that in regards to additional resources for police versus additional resources for mental health,” Leng said. “It has to be this and that to be successful.”

To be able to offer those resources, he said, the town is working hard to get its finances in order.

An ongoing struggle

The shooting that damaged her home is always at the back of Washington’s mind.

“I’ll never forget that night,” she said.

Washington gets especially nervous in the evenings, when it gets “dusk dark.”

“You think that you’re safe inside your house but you’re not,” she said. “I could be sitting anywhere in my house and anything could come in my house now.”

The ongoing crime reports haven’t helped.

“When you hear of someone else … having bullet holes coming through their house, it feels like you’re not safe,” she said. “It’s like a muscle spasm. It’s like when you get a muscle spasm, and you can’t move — that’s how it feels. And it just feels like it’s not going to stop.”

Since gunfire left a hole in her door on Nov. 29, police have reported armed street robberies on Blue Hills Avenue, Battis Road and Walden Street.

They’ve investigated a shooting near Pine Rock Avenue that was deadly and another near Oberlin Road and Woodin Street that left a woman seriously injured.

Offiers also arrested a man they allege committed an assault and robbery on Dec. 18.

They reported bullets entering homes in two separate Dec. 26 incidents, one on Ridge Road and one on Turner Avenue. Residents were inside their houses on both occasions, according to police, who said one woman told them the bullets “missed her by inches.”

And then, on New Year’s Day, Washington reported another shooting on her street.

There was no damage to her home this time, she said – but she was “nervous as hell.”

She wouldn’t get any sleep that night.

Peter Hvizdak / Hearst Connecticut Media ⏩ Above, bullets entered the home of Kim Washington of Marlboro Street in Hamden in late November. She is shown here in December.

Peter Hvizdak / Hearst Connecticut Media During a shooting in late November, bullets entered the home of Kim Washington of Marlboro Street, center. She is pictured with Hamden Police Capt. Kevin Samperi, left, and Det. Sean Dolan.

Kim Washington, left, with Hamden Police Sgt. William Onofrio.