New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
City’s homicide rate declines in 2018
NEW HAVEN — The city’s crime reports look drastically different from the start of the decade when homicides peaked at 32 in one year.
Last year, New Haven recorded its lowest homicide rate in the past 50 years and the city has managed to maintain lower numbers in 2018 through partnerships between police and community, officials said.
New Haven has seen nine homicides this year, two of which are being investigated as self-defense cases by the state’s attorney office, Assistant Police Chief Racheal Cain said. Homicides are recorded as intentional deaths caused by another person. The count this year surpasses last year’s by two, but is holding steady as some of the lowest in New Haven’s history.
“Some things I believe that have affected the crime rate are our relationships in the community,” Cain said.
Other cities in the state are noticing a downward trend as well. Hartford has seen 20 homicides this year, according to the city’s latest report on Dec. 15, compared to 28 last year, while Bridgeport has recorded 11 as of Dec. 28, a large drop from the 23 Bridgeport had in 2017 and close to the 10 the city saw in 2016.
In 2011, New Haven was among the top five most violent cities in the U.S., according to Business Insider, having 1,584 violent crimes per 100,000 people and 628 robberies per 100,000 people, almost triple the national average at that time. Homicides numbered 32.
What New Haven has been doing differently is not leaving crime prevention solely up to the police, New Haven Project Longevity Manager Stacy Spell said.
“There will always be components of our community that will be dissatisfied with the number of violent incidents, but overall we are seeing a drastic decline, and the only way it will get better is we can’t rely strictly on the police,” Spell said. “Communities have to play a role in leadership
and resiliency. We are on our way to seeing that increase.”
Cain said programs such as Project Longevity, New Haven Safe Streets and the Juvenile Review Board are making a difference because “the idea is not just to partner with these agencies, but it’s a targeted approach to address the groups that are causing the large majority” of crimes, she said. The programs seek to target the small number of people perpetrating the crimes and not affect the rest of the community. It’s been a significant move from the days when police would flood an entire area investigating an incident when 90 percent of the community wasn’t involved, she said.
Moreover, Project Safe Neighborhood, which started in Newhallville, seeks to stop gun violence by educating youth offenders and building relationships between law enforcement and the community. Spell said this in conjunction with other programs have brought the numbers down, but certain neighborhoods still see significant gun violence hurting the community.
“The memory of Tyrick Keyes stays first and foremost in my mind that we need to build better communities,” Spell said.
Tyrick was a 14-year-old high school athlete killed in July 2017 when an unknown assailant targeted him near Bassett Street Park and shot him three times.
“The police are a major factor, but the police can’t do it alone,” Spell said. “The community needs to step up.”
Historically, homicides are mostly caused by shootings,
Cain said, and the deaths this year were no different. Of the nine homicides, seven were by gunshot, one by stabbing and one by strangulation, she said. This year, police seized 114 guns and made 106 gun arrests citywide.
“The more guns we take off the street, the less violence we have,” Cain said. “That’s outstanding work being done by our officers there.”
Moreover, in the department’s December gun buyback event, 125 operable firearms were turned in. Last year police collected 409 firearms from seizures, arrests and buybacks and it looks like the department will exceed that number for 2018 once final totals come in, Cain said.
The Center for Disease Control’s latest national rate for deaths by firearm is 12.3 per 100,000. The Gun Violence Archive reported 14,394 gun deaths this year nationwide, as of Dec. 28.
Chaz Carmon, president and youth director of Ice the Beef, grew up in New Haven when crime was at its worst, averaging 20-30 homicides a year. His organization works with youths on conflict resolution and ending youth violence. His fight is to make sure children aren’t counted among the city’s homicides. This year none were, which he’s thankful for, he said.
For youths, violence doesn’t begin out of malice, he said, but often out of necessity.
“For children, a poor decision can be based on so many things,” Carmon said. “It could be having no food or an older person around them influencing them. A lot of times there’s and 18- or 20-year-old that’s amping them up.
“Go look back at their household when they were younger, you won’t see a home where there’s a
mother and father making money. You’ll see a family under strain trying to make it . ... Then when they’re 15 thinking they’re a man they go out and try to provide ...
“It’s a shame that our kids have to go through that and you can’t focus on school and inside you become so angry as a teenager,” he said. “You get so angry that you shoot somebody. We see an increase in murder and robbery because they don’t see a way out.”
Carmon’s fight is also for jobs, he said.
“Having better jobs and better housing uplifts you,” he said. “Knowing there’s a way out of poverty gives you hope, knowing you don’t have to sell drugs.”
Carmon said when he was a kid he didn’t have hope like the community does now and the historically low crime rate is reflecting that.
“If you’re making $20 an hour, you’re not thinking about selling drugs to provide for your family,” he said.
The police department has recognized that correlation and has integrated it into violence prevention programs.
“The programs aren’t just a punitive response,” Cain said. “To curb the violence, it’s giving the individual resources to get out of that cycle by getting a job and support. We try to put them on the right path so they can change their lives and they don’t have to be part of that violence. In the year forward, we’re going to strengthen that.”
Violent and nonviolent crime is down overall in New Haven — nonfatal shootings are down from 61 last year to 50; confirmed shots fired are down from 133 to 100. Both are the lowest they’ve been in recent years, data shows.
Robberies and all other violent crime, except felony sexually assault, are down around 20 percent, according to the latest police data.
Spell and Carmon also said the community will be the biggest factor in lowering crime and keeping it low.
“We have to care about community and stand up for ourselves,” Carmon said. “We cannot sit there and just let stuff happen and not say anything because then your kid could die or a bullet could come through your house. If we don’t say anything we’ll keep experiencing that. I believe people have started stepping up in the communities and people have started coming together to talk about these issues. There are people who will support you but you need to call somebody.”
Marlene Pratt, who lost her son to gun violence in 1998, is working to honor homicide victims with a memorial garden planned for Valley Street in the shadow of West Rock. The project recently received $300,000 from the State Bond Commission through a push from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
“With the garden, we’re trying to bring some healing and hopefully awareness,” Pratt said. “By doing
the garden and naming the individuals, hopefully once it’s completed, when people go into the garden and see how senseless (gun violence) is and see the longterm effect, they’d want to make a change.”
Pratt is a member of the Victims of Gun Violence, a group of mothers who all have lost children to gun violence. The memorial will include names of victims and mothers, mostly from New Haven, going back to 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.
“The New Haven Police Department is doing what they can to combat gun violence and it takes a village to take the city back,” Pratt said. She said she sees the movement taking place, especially among the mothers of the victims standing up and wanting to speak up on behalf of their children.
Winifred Phillips is another mother who lost her son, Lavias Phillips, almost 11 years ago to gun violence. As 32-year-old Lavias Phillips was walking back to his car after visiting his father in New Haven, a man approached him and started a fight. Phillips was shot and killed, leaving his wife and five children without him. Winifred Phillips said her heart is still heavy with pain after more than a
decade.
“We never want another parent to experience what we have, the agonizing pain that we’ve experienced,” she said.
Phillips and Pratt are working on the memorial garden and soon speaking to seventh- and eighthgraders about gun violence to help give kids mentoring and love.
“We will go to these schools and not only tell the stories, but reach out to these children who need love and need to feel love and hopefully, that will help put them on the right path to success,” she said. “A lot of time, they’re in households with no love and if you didn’t receive love, you don’t know love and love plays a big factor in the way a child grows up.”
Spell said it’s because of community activists and management teams the city is seeing a decline in crime.
“But in my eyes, as a resident, one homicide is too many,” she said. “Hopefully, we’ll arrive at the point where New Haven has an engaged community population of churches and block watches along with the police and law enforcement entities and we can see homicides under half a dozen. I belive that’s possible.”