Area leaders: ‘The way he died was senseless’

As the death of another back man in police custody — seen throughout the world in viral video — continued to reverberate across the country Friday, local policing experts, politicians and faith leaders spoke of racism, trauma in communities of color, and what needs to happen.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker sent a message to residents regarding the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, while being restrained by nowformer Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was arrested Friday.

“Today my heart goes out to George Floyd, his family, his loved ones, his community — our community,” Elicker wrote. “This is another example in our nation of a violent act by a police officer against a person of color. I regret that this is not the last time such an act will be committed.”

Elicker went on to say he believes it’s important for

leaders to “speak out and call out these incidents for what they are – racism.”

Good police officers everywhere are “collectively wincing” at the death of Floyd, , said John DeCarlo, a retired police chief and associate professor and director of the master’s program at the University of New Haven’s Criminal Justice Department.

“Why does this keep happening?” DeCarlo asked.

There are many variables that lead to bad cops being on the street, including negligent supervision, negligent hiring, training that varies in every department according to municipal budgets and the systemic difficulty of removing people who shouldn’t be police officers from the job, DeCarlo said.

“We’re not harvesting the best applicants” because of a lack of national standards, the ability to pay a fair wage and consistently apply the best policies across the country, DeCarlo said.

Cops like Chauvin — who was involved in two previous shootings yet kept his job — put a bad light on all 700,000 police officers in the country, DeCarlo said.

He said it’s important to learn from these events where organizational deficiencies exist.

Connecticut has had its share of police shootings — most recently the fatal shooting of black teen Mubarak Mubareck Soulemane, 19, by a Connecticut State Police trooper following a chase from Norwalk to West Haven.

But police shootings are higher in the South and in rural areas, he said.

Based on statistics in the Washington Post data base, DeCarlo said there were four fatal police shootings in Connecticut in 2019.

Adjusted for population in 2019, there were 1.11 fatal police shootings in Connecticut per one million people, he said. Examples in other states, using that same measurement: there were 2.02 in Minnesota, 3.22 in Florida, 3.48 in California, 3.66 in Georgia, 6.35 in Mississippi, 4.53 in Oregon, 6.72 in Colorado, 4.01 in Texas, 5.1 in Washington state.

In 2019 there were 1,004 people shot fatally by police; of those, 370 were Caucasian, 235 were African American and 158 were Hispanic. African Americans make up 13,4 percent of the population, he said, showing they were killed disproportionately.

DeCarlo said it’s important to remember that many of those shootings were “justifiable.” Of those 1,004 people shot, 589 had a gun, 171 had a knife, 62 had vehicles and 26 had a toy weapon, DeCarlo said.

Milford Police Chief Keith Mello, president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association and chairman of the Police Officers Standards and Training Council, said in a statement released Friday that the images in the video of Floyd and Chauvin are “beyond disturbing and cast a stain over the law enforcement profession and the dedicated men and women who strive to protect and serve their communities with honor.”

He also wrote that the “lack of intervention by other officers on the scene” in Minneapolis was equally disturbing. He said police officers’ oath and ethics require them to act whenever they witness an unjust act, even if by another police officer.

“As Law Enforcement Officers we recognize that the behavior in these videos reflect failures in police tactics, judgement and training,” Mello wrote. “Unfortunately, these actions in Minnesota erode the layers of trust, confidence and goodwill that so many of you have built within your communities, especially those who lead agencies in fragile communities.”

Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington announced Friday that state investigators arrested Chauvin, who was one of four officers fired this week

Chauvin, seen on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck while the handcuffed man pleaded that he could not breathe, was arrested after three days of often-violent protests that resulted in fires and looting across parts of Minneapolis.

The Rev. Kelcy Steele of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church in New Haven spoke about the death of Floyd during Gov. Ned Lamont’s Friday press conference on coronavirus restrictions.

“There’s something that has been on my heart and in my spirit as we’re talking about COVID-19. There’s another virus that’s plaguing the faith community ... and that’s racism,” said Steele, whose church is on Dixwell Avenue. “... I can’t stand here without bringing up the name of George Floyd.”

Steele likened Floyd’s death to many of those who have died from the coronavirus, noting he had lost his job as a bouncer during the pandemic. He said it is the responsibility of the faith community to care for the disenfranchised.

“This black unemployed man didn’t deserve to die. The way he died was senseless. He begged for his life, pleaded for his life. And when you try so hard to put faith into this system — a system you know isn’t designed for you — it’s sad that we still have to talk about race in this day and time, in this climate, as well as in this pandemic,” said Steele. “I feel like it’s time for us as a faith community to be the church — speak the truth, stand for those who have no voice.”

He led a moment of silence before continuing his remarks.

Ian Douglas, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, thanked Steele for “making the connection between those who suffer at the hands of racism and white supremacy in our nation and those who suffer from the realities of COVID-19,” and said faith leaders would stand together to care for the poor and needy.

“This is an incredibly difficult time in our nation and in our state, and it’s a very crucial space that our religious leaders need to occupy if we are going to heal and serve God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation and peace for all people,” said Douglas. “We invite the good people of Connecticut, working with their religious leaders, to come back together.”

Lamont thanked the faith leaders for coming together in these times, referencing Floyd’s death.

An epidemic of gun violence here and nationwide, racial bias and cultures of police brutality have inflicted trauma on communities of color that seem difficult to heal from, experts and community members said last year after Stephanie Washington, 22, and Paul Witherspoon III, 21, were fired upon by Hamden and Yale police officers following up on a reported armed robbery. Days later, Anthony Jose Vega Cruz died at the hands of police gunfire after officers pursued him on Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield.

The violence suffered in many black communities, the ways children are taught to behave, the mass incarceration of black people and the unpunished or underpunished killings of African Americans at the hands of police are part of the effects and evolution of historical trauma, David Canton, associate professor of history and director of the Africana Studies Program at Connecticut College, told the Register last year.

Canton said it’s played out when African Americans have run-ins with police or see police around and their bodies tense up just seeing the red and blue lights.

“You feel your body tense or heart rate going up, making sure you’re going the right speed, that you’re signaling,” he said. “You try the best you can because you know that pull-over may lead to issues. I know it’s rooted in history in an idea that black people are fundamentally criminal.”

That fear for one’s life then gets taught and learned and relived every generation, Canton said.

“On the micro daily level these things are going through your head and that you’ll be assumed guilty,” Canton said.

Protests against police shootings have become routine after such incidents and promises from officials to focus on community policing get repeated. But even after communities cry “never again” and officers undergo more training, people turn to face another incident.

Soulemane’s killing resulted in a visit to New Haven by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who promised to put the national spotlight on the event, saying there is no justification to shoot a person without a gun who is pinned in a disabled car surrounded by police, as Soulemane was.

“If Mubarak committed a crime, he should have been in a courthouse, not in a morgue,” Sharpton said, rousing a crowd of about 200 at Calvary Baptist Church who attended a service for Soulemane.

Sharpton said that while there’s no way to justify carjacking — the teen’s alleged crime — it is up to the courts to handle, not police as judge and jury.

Sharpton said he had to get the “stench of injustice out of the nostrils in my nose.”

Sharpton took a lead role in organizing protests against the police-related deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York, as well as Trayvon Martin, shot in Florida by a neighborhood watch member during a fight.

One of Soulemane’s uncles said his nephew’s death was a “public execution.”

Soulemane was shot and killed on Jan 15 after he allegedly carjacked a rideshare driver in Norwalk and engaged officers in a high-speed chase that led to West Haven. After the shooting, state police said Trooper Brian North fired his weapon after he saw Soulemane with a knife.