by Thomas Breen | Jul 24, 2019 1:00 pm

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Posted to: City Hall, Legal Writes, True Vote

Steve Hamm was arrested in 1971 at a mass D.C. demonstration against the Vietnam War. Iva Johnson recalled a New Haven cop threatening to shoot her oldest son if he didn’t calm down quickly. Donald Spencer was encircled and arrested by Bridgeport police simply for asking directions to find a rental car company’s parking lot.

Those stories of civilian-law enforcement encounters emerged over the course of a five-and-a-half-hour Aldermanic Affairs Committee hearing about the mayor’s Civilian Review Board nominees.

The Monday night hearing, which saw alders interview 10 of the 11 candidates that Mayor Toni Harp has nominated to serve on the newly re-constituted police oversight board, took place in a crowded Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall. One of the mayor’s nominees, Ryan Knox, did not show up to the hearing.

All 11 candidates’ nominations now move to the full Board of Alders for a final up or down vote at its Aug. 5 meeting.

While the focal point of Monday night’s hearing was the committee’s interviews of former West Haven Police Captain Bob Proto and police accountability activist Jewu Richardson, both of whom are vying to be on the new CRB, the committee also interviewed eight other candidates interested in investigating allegations of police misconduct.

They, too, had stories to tell about encounters with police.

The alders asked each of the candidates the same dozen questions about their interest in and qualifications for the board, their thoughts on community policing and how to make that goal a reality, and their past positive and negative interactions with police. One such question asked was have any of the candidates ever been arrested.

The committee included said question in the public interview process, Yale Alder Hacibey Catalbasoglu explained, because people who have firsthand experience of being arrested might be better able to “empathize with those who have been arrested.”

While the candidates offered a diverse array of perspectives about and personal histories with the police, a consistent thread of difference ran between the white and black nominees’ testimonies.

The former mostly cited interactions with police that ranged from inconvenient to upsetting to reassuring. The latter mostly cited interactions that were threatening, traumatizing, and clouded by the specter of violence.

“I could have lost my son that day,” Johnson said about the near fatal encounter with the police that is one of the motivations for her to serve on the CRB.

Iva Johnson: Shooting Threat

Johnson, a labor organizer, West Rock/West Hills Community Management Team co-chair, and Ward 30 Democratic Committee co-chair, told the alders that her children’s lives have been greatly influenced by the threat and reality of police discrimination.

Her youngest son, she said, refuses to own a car because, when he did, he was “followed, harassed, and embarrassed for getting pulled over for no reason.” His white friends would joke that her son was safer when they rode in the car along with him, she said, and they were right.

Her oldest son, meanwhile, has a psychiatric disability and once almost lost his life during an interaction with the police. Johnson recalled one of two officers who responded to a call involving her son saying, “If you don’t calm down, I’m gonna shoot you. I’m gonna shoot you right now.”

If that was the most negative experience she’s ever had with an officer, Johnson said, the most positive came just a few minutes later. The aggressive officer’s partner pulled him aside, talked him down, and convinced the threatening officer to apologize to Johnson and her son. If that deescalation amongst partners hadn’t happened, she said, she would be giving a very different testimony to the alders that night.

“We continuously have to make sure that we address brutality and misconduct at every point that we can,” Johnson said.

“I believe that we need to continue with police making sure that they know us as residents,” show continued, “as human beings, as people in the community.”

When asked if she has any formal police training or other training pertinent to the investigatory work of the civilian review board, Johnson said, “I’ve had real live training because I am a civilian.” Any other training is “not as important as the real life training that life gives you as a black or brown person.”

Steve Hamm: Protest Arrest

A Wooster Square-based freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker, Steve Hamm said that he has been arrested twice in his life. Both arrests were illegally made, he said, and he was never charged with any alleged offenses.

The first time came on May 1, 1971 in Washington, D.C., he said, when he joined 300,000 fellow anti-Vietnam War protesters for a mass demonstration in the nation’s capital. He was camped out in a city park that protesters had a permit to be in, he said, until police revoked the permit early in the morning and arrested dozens, including Hamm.

“I didn’t put up a fuss,” Hamm said. He spent a day in jail, and was later released with no charges.

The second time came on his 21st birthday, when he threw a party at his apartment in western Pennsylvania. Some local officers thought they saw some underage attendees drinking alcohol, he said, and let themselves into his apartment to investigate. Hamm told the officers they needed a warrant to come into his place, he said, and they subsequently arrested him. He spent a night in the Allegheny County jail, he said. “Not a pleasant place.” He was released the following morning without any charges filed.

Jayuan Carter: “Very Intense Moment”

Jayuan Carter, a Fair Haven landscaping company owner who grew up in Newhallville, said a key experience that motivated him to seek out a spot on the CRB came when he was 18 years old, just after he graduated from Hillhouse High School and was living on Ashmun Street.

He had just left a basketball game with some friends to return home and freshen up before going to a backyard cookout. While he had been playing basketball, a shooting had taken place in his neighborhood, and police were on the lookout for a black male suspect who, besides those race and gender details, bore little resemblance to Carter.

Near his house, Carter said, he was surrounded by officers and treated “like I wasn’t a human being. It was a very intense moment.”

That type of lived experience, he said, is a valuable perspective for CRB members charged with investigating alleged police misconduct.

Chris Barnard: Stolen Bikes

The Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills nominee, Chris Barnard, is an associate professor of art at Connecticut College. While not a member of the coalition of police accountability activists who have worked for two decades for a CRB with subpoena power, he said, he submitted his candidacy for the board while respecting that “a lot of resident activists worked really hard to make this a reality.”

He has never been arrested, he said. He described his most positive experiences with the police as when he called the cops when his home was burglarized and when his and his wife’s bikes were stolen from their garage.

He was unhappy with how long it took for the officers to arrive after the burglary, he said, but he respected the work the work that they did. He expressed gratitude that they were able to find and return one of the bikes without pressing charges against the person they found the bike with.

Donald Spencer: Profiled In Bridgeport

Donald Spencer, a New Haven native who currently serves as a co-chair of the Quinnipiac Meadows Community Management Team, has worked for Yale’s engineering department for the past 29 years. He also serves as a union steward for Yale’s Local 35 blue collar union.

His most negative experience with the police, he said, came decades ago when he worked for the rental car company Hertz.

He was driving a rental car through Bridgeport, looking for the Hertz parking lot at which he had to drop off the vehicle.

He stopped along the way to ask a woman on the street for directions. Police saw him stop, he said, and assumed he was dealing drugs. Six or seven cop cars followed him for blocks, he said, and ultimately surrounded his car and arrested him. He spent three or four hours at the police department, he said, until he successfully convinced them he hadn’t done anything wrong.

When Beaver Hlls Alder Jill Marks asked if Spencer filed an internal affairs complaint after the incident, Spencer said no. I was young and stupid, he said, and just grateful to have a job.

When asked if and when officers should be allowed to use force, Spencer replied, “I think they should only use force when they’re properly trained to do so, and without harming a civilian.”

Nina Faucett: Special Needs Son Arrested

Nina Faucett, the secretary of the Newhallville Community Management Team and the founder of her own business accounting and auditing firm, said she is a single mother of a special needs son. She has never been arrested, she said, but her son has.

“He got arrested for throwing a twig from a balcony at someone who was quite savvy with the police,” she said. She tried to explain that he is autistic, has ADHD and OCD, but officers arrested him anyway. “That in itself was quite traumatic for him,” she said.

As former EMT in upstate New York, she said, she learned that one of the most important preconditions for any conflict resolution is presenting a calm exterior. Learning how to calm oneself, she said, goes a long way towards putting others in potentially desperate or distraught circumstances at ease. “That I believe is a basic thing in conflict resolution,” she said. “Remaining calm yourself.”

Jean Jenkins: Law Enforcement Family

Webster Street resident Jean Jenkins, an early child education student at Gateway Community College, said that she has never been arrested and never had any particularly negative or troubling interactions with the police.

That’s largely because, she said, she comes from a long line of educators and law enforcement officers. Five of her seven uncles are police officers, she said, and one of her uncles was the first black police chief of Hartford. She said the officers in her family have helped her and her sons understand how to interact with the police when stopped to defuse the situation and avoid any potential violence. While her sons have been stopped by both New Haven and Yale police, she said, they’ve never been harassed.

Richard Crouse: Break Down Barriers

A Florida native and the sole Latinx-identifying CRB candidate nominated by the mayor to date, Richard Crouse said he has been exceptionally fortunate not to have been arrested or harassed by law enforcement during his life. A Yale PhD student studying neuroscience and the founder of the local nonprofit Science Haven, Crouse said he has had a very positive experience with Dwight district manager Lt. John Healy, both at Dwight Community Management Team meetings and at local block parties and school events where Crouse teaches public school students about science.

“I want to break down some of the barriers between the community and the university,” he said about the motivation behind his application to serve on the CRB as well as his work with Science Haven.

“As a scientist I take the pursuit of truth extremely seriously,” he said.