New Haven’s drop in gun violence builds over 3 years Community policing, more cops on street cited

New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman appears before the Aldermanic Affairs Committee at City Hall in New Haven. New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman appears before the Aldermanic Affairs Committee at City Hall in New Haven. Photo: (Arnold Gold-New Haven Register) Photo: (Arnold Gold-New Haven Register) Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close New Haven’s drop in gun violence builds over 3 years 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

NEW HAVEN >> City leaders have declared a small victory in the ongoing battle against gun violence.

The police chief, the mayor and the fire chief say there is reason to celebrate the steady but incremental decline in the rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings, and a significant decrease in gun violence thus far in 2014.

“This celebration belongs to us all,” Esserman said, at a recent press conference.

Since the beginning of the year, shootings have been down 22 percent, as three fewer people have been struck in nonfatal shootings and one less homicide has occurred as compared to the same period in 2013, according to data from the city.

Last spring, Esserman convinced the Board of Alders to approve additional overtime during the summer months.

“The Board of Alders approved overtime, and that made a big difference this summer,” said Alder Richard Furlow of Ward 27, which overlaps several neighborhoods.

The money translated to more cops in cars and walking beats in high-crime neighborhoods and in areas that in the past have been flash points for violence.

“We didn’t micromanage the process,” Esserman said “The deployments were managed at the local district level.”

But the progress made in reducing violence since last year follows a trend begun shortly after Esserman arrived in New Haven for his second stint as police chief.

Esserman began his second tenure at the end of 2011. The year had been one of the bloodiest in New Haven’s history, with more than 130 shootings and 34 homicides, according to Esserman. The conditions were similar to those that first landed Esserman in the Elm City in the early 1990s. And his second stint has seen him serve up the same kind of medicine to help cure the city of gun violence: a combination of community policing and a department hyper-focused on gun violence.

“Community policing is built on relationships,” Esserman said. “New Haven had abandoned walking beats.”

Upon his return, Esserman resurrected foot patrols. He gave cops cell phones and told them to interact with residents across the city’s neighborhoods. (Two decades ago Esserman gave officers pagers and told them to give the numbers to residents on their beats.)

Esserman also opened up to the public CompStat meetings, where the department crunches policing stats. It was a return to the department he ran in the 1990s, but a departure from culture that emerged after he left New Haven in the 1990s.

“The New Haven Police Department had fallen back as an organization which was reactive and 9-1-1 driven,” he said.

Furthermore, as the department moved away from community policing, a gap seemed to develop.

“The department had isolated itself from the community,” Esserman said.

And the results have showed. In 2011, the solve rate for shootings was around 12 percent. The solve rate for shootings has more than tripled since, Esserman said.

According to the state Division of Criminal Justice Policy and Planning, crime was down 9 percent in 2013 from the previous year. But perhaps just as important to the long-term goals of the department and the city leaders, Esserman has helped “rebuild legitimacy” for the department.

“It’s important for the residents to know who the police are,” Furlow said. “The residents should know police by their name and the police should know the residents.”

Across the city, a number of volunteers, grassroots groups and agencies also spend immeasurable time working with youths at-risk for violence, or to build better relationships between police and youths. The city also has been working, with mixed reviews, since 2012 with Project Longevity, a program that targets group-on-group violence and those most likely to commit violence.

But New Haven’s success story in decreasing gun violence has been one of shared success. The decline in gun violence in New Haven has followed a trend of declining gun violence around the state and the nation. The reasons for the decline are myriad: community policing, technology, demographic shifts (less people in the age range where someone is most likely to commit a crime) and the advent of Big Data in the criminal justice system.

“Anyone that tells you that one thing is bringing down the crime rate doesn’t know what they are talking about,” said Mike Lawlor, undersecretary for the state Division of Criminal Justice Policy and Planning.

Community policing has helped, but so has the quantum leap in technology, specifically surveillance available to cops.

“It is almost impossible to commit a crime these days and not get caught on a video camera,” Lawlor said.

And where detectives a generation ago solved cases through a combination of shoe leather cop work and phone calls to confidential sources, the modern cop turns to Twitter and Facebook, where crooks often brag about their capers.

“People would be surprised by how much criminals brag about their crimes on social media,” Lawlor said.

The result has been violent crime rates in Connecticut that are approaching historic lows.

The 86 murders tallied in the state in 2013 was the second-lowest total for the state in 40 years, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Policy and Planning.

“Much of this success can be attributed to a focus on reducing the number of murders in the three major cities of New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport since 2011,” Lawlor wrote in an August memo to Gov. Dannel P., Malloy, “2014 Mid-Year Update on Crime Trends.”

Still, violent crime remains disproportionately high in the state’s three largest cities, which accounted for 56 of Connecticut’s 86 murders in 2013, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Policy and Planning.

Furlow and Esserman agree the answer may come with increased staffing. The department is awaiting new academy classes to help bolster the ranks of the department, which city leaders think is key to New Haven continuing to reduce gun violence.

“There has been a shortage in getting police out in the community,” Furlow said. “There needs to be more of a police presence.”