Author Archives: James Lu

The New Haven Police Department’s new shooting task force made its first arrest Friday. Less than two weeks after NHPD Chief Dean Esserman created the unit with the help of the State’s Attorney’s Office, the task force arrested Gary Williams for the non-fatal December shootings of Anthony Moore and Jermell Gibson at Poplar and Chatham »

The Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic is challenging the legality of a federal deportation program launched in Connecticut Wednesday. The WIRAC filed a class action lawsuit in a U.S. district court Feb. 13 questioning the constitutionality of the immigration detainers used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the program, known »

Over 70 New Haven workers and immigrants’ rights advocates travelled to Hartford Wednesday to protest the federal deportation program that launched in Connecticut that day. As the controversial U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as Secure Communities rolled out statewide, the group delivered a letter to Gov. Dannel Malloy expressing “alarm” at the program, »

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his city’s police department Tuesday, after reports surfaced Saturday that it had monitored Muslim students at Yale and at least 14 other colleges around the Northeast. At a press conference at the Brooklyn Public Library Tuesday morning, Bloomberg said the New York Police Department’s surveillance helped “keep the country »

Less than a year after the City of New Haven finalized its settlement in a bias suit filed by 20 New Haven firefighters that reached the Supreme Court, another case involving claims of racial discrimination by the city might wind up at the nation’s highest court. The city filed a petition last Wednesday requesting that »

New York Police Department officers monitored Muslim students at Yale and at least 14 other colleges around the Northeast, the Associated Press first reported Saturday. Detectives went undercover and “as a daily routine” in 2006 and 2007 surveyed the websites, forums and blogs of Muslim student associations at colleges including Yale, Columbia University and the »

The Yale Police Department will kick off its next Citizen Police Academy on March 30. The program, which will run for six consecutive Tuesday evenings at the YPD’s Ashmun Street headquarters, aims to increase understanding and awareness of the department’s history, operations and capabilities, Chief Ronnell Higgins said. As part of the YPD’s expanded community »

Crime is at a 44-year low in Connecticut. That statistic was one of several laid out last Friday by Mike Lawlor, the state’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, as he addressed the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee on crime trends statewide. Though Lawlor touted positive state data, including a 11.4 percent drop in arrests »

After a bitter campaign against Mayor John DeStefano Jr. in September’s primary, Anthony Dawson was appointed to the Board of Police Commissioners Friday. Although Dawson, a lieutenant in the protective services department at Yale-New Haven Hospital and a former 16-year alderman, unsuccessfully challenged DeStefano in the mayoral primary on a platform of correcting the mayor’s »

The New Haven Police Department will form a new shootings task force aimed at investigating and cracking down on shootings in the Elm City. With the help of two inspectors from the State’s Attorney’s Office, the new squad will set up shop on the third floor of the NHPD’s Union Avenue headquarters, where they will »

A new initiative within the New Haven Police Department highlights a recalibration of policing strategy under the leadership of Chief Dean Esserman. For the past month, the Elm City’s top public safety officials have met every Tuesday morning at the NHPD’s Union Avenue headquarters for “CompStat” meetings, a new means for coordinating crime reduction and »

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. sketched out a broad strategy for improving the Elm City’s public safety in his State of the City address at City Hall Monday evening. The mayor set out two missions — establishing a clear strategy for reducing violence crime and reinvigorating community partnerships with the police — as part of a »