Yale Daily News

In the early hours of the morning April 16, 2019, Hamden police officer Devon Eaton and Yale Police officer Terrance Pollock fired 16 shots at Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon, a Black couple sitting in their car.

The police shot Washington in the torso and she was immediately hospitalized according to a Connecticut State Police press release. Paul Witherspoon was not injured.

The next day, New Haven and Hamden officials held a briefing, which was criticized by local and student activists alike for the conference’s lack of concrete steps for the university to take as well as the lack of details provided outside of the body camera footage, audio footage and initial Connecticut State Police report. There was a protest that night to compel the University to take more action.

That Thursday, two days after the shooting, Community activists and Yale students conducted a protest in front of University President Peter Salovey’s house. What followed was a seven-hour protest beginning outside of Woodbridge Hall. Around 500 students and local organizers marched throughout the downtown area on Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and finally ended on Broadway. 

“There is a larger context of state-sanctioned violence that we are in,” Kerry Ellington, a People Against Police Brutality community organizer, told the rally’s attendees early in the afternoon as they gathered on Wall Street outside of Woodbridge Hall. “[Washington and Witherspoon] did absolutely nothing wrong. And even if they did do something wrong, it still wouldn’t be cause for deprivation of their rights. Why is it okay?”

Salovey said in a University-wide email that Pollock had been placed on administrative leave. YPD later placed Pollock in an unarmed position.

Following pressure from activists, Connecticut State Police made footage of the shooting public a week after the incident. John Rovella, the commissioner of the State Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, told the News at the time that it was “unheard of” that the state police were “putting [the footage] out so quickly.”

Laurie Sweet of Hamden Action Now said that Connecticut law only requires the state to investigate fatal police shootings, so the investigation was a victory in itself. Eaton pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges Nov. 5, 2020, in a court appearance. The case is still ongoing. 

On Aug. 4, 2020, Washington filed a lawsuit against the two officers as well as Yale and Hamden’s police departments before the New Haven Superior Court. The case has now been moved to the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. She seeks more than $15,000 in financial compensation for physical harm, psychological distress and the loss of her car. 

Witherspoon, on the other hand, reached a $75,000 settlement with the Hamden Legislative Council Nov. 18, 2020.

The Yale Police Department was founded in 1894.