Lily Belle Poling, Contributing Photographer

Police arrested seven individuals on the New Haven Green Monday morning and cleared tents at a homeless encampment erected in a protest against the city’s homeless encampment sweeps and homelessness policies.

Monday’s arrests came shy of two weeks after the encampment’s erection when organizers first put up tents on the Green. Before Monday’s arrests, New Haven housing outreach officials had offered beds in shelters and other support services. NHPD made clear to participants that tents are not allowed on the Green, and organizers took them down after the first night so that they could maintain their occupation of the space.

When New Haven Police arrived at the Green early Monday morning, encampment organizers felt that the officers had come to disrupt the encampment at a time when people would be most vulnerable. According to Mayor Justin Elicker, NHPD came Monday morning to check if encampment participants had complied with an instruction given by NHPD on Saturday to remove certain equipment, such as propane canisters and tables. 

An organizer who requested anonymity due to employment concerns said that participants had removed everything they were asked to and felt that NHPD’s early-morning disruption was “unjust.” Organizers decided to put the tents back up in protest and face the risk of arrest, he said. He added that their decision adds to a long history of “civil disobedience” when laws promote injustice in the U.S. 

“It’s now become a civil disobedience protest,” Sean Matteson, the mayor’s chief of staff, said, referring to the organizers’ choice to put up tents on Monday morning and justifying the arrests.

Police officers warned tent occupants that they would be arrested if they refused to comply with the city’s ordinance. 

One of those arrested is homeless. The other six were organizers — some of whom had been camping overnight alongside other participants — or student activists. 

The arrested individuals were charged with criminal trespass in the first degree, disorderly conduct, interfering with an officer and violating the city ordinance against erecting temporary structures in parks, according to NHPD’s communications officer Christian Bruckhart. As of 3:30 p.m., the seven arrested were all still at the NHPD’s detention center but “in the process” of being bonded out, Bruckhart said.

Two weeks of tensions on the Green

The encampment was erected on Oct. 16 by the Unhoused Activist Community Team, which gathered homeless individuals to sleep on the Green in around 25 pitched tents. The following morning, New Haven police officers told participants that they must remove their tents, citing a city ordinance that prohibits tents on the Green. Participants complied but kept living on the Green in similar numbers, without tents. 

NHPD and housing outreach officials engaged with the encampment a second time on Saturday when they instructed the group of advocates to relocate to a different part of the Green to allow the area they were camping in to be cleaned, participants recalled. 

On Monday morning, participants once again brought out four tents in protest of continued disruption to their encampment by NHPD. Those occupying the tents told the News before arrests were made that they were prepared for the possibility of arrest.

When asked why officers had prepared to make arrests, Lieutenant Brendan Borer of the NHPD cited the ordinance prohibiting tents on the Green. 

“The people sleeping out under the stars here, for the first time, have a little bit of community, a little bit of safety, a little bit of warmth and there was a bit of food,” Mark Colville, who was arrested and is the lead organizer of U-ACT, said. “Now we understand that this isn’t the most ideal place in the world to set up something like this, but what we’re trying to do is just demonstrate how if you just give a little minimum of infrastructure and support to an effort like this, which is driven by homeless people, then what you immediately get is a center of mutual aid in which neighbors take care of each other.”

Colville and other activists for New Haven’s homeless community have repeatedly called on the city to designate a piece of land where unhoused individuals could set up similar encampments free from city intervention. Officials have repeatedly swept homeless encampments across the city, most recently in June.  

In the first two confrontations with the encampment, New Haven officials offered participants beds at local homeless shelters. Mayor Elicker told the News that 10 people accepted shelter beds on Oct. 17, and another 13 were provided beds this past Saturday. Participants previously told the News that the shelter system cannot be used as a “catch-all” solution for homelessness. 

Borer said on Monday that police action was a “last resort.” 

Matteson, the mayor’s chief of staff, said that the city’s move to clear the encampment was motivated by concerns during Saturday’s cleanup, where city officials found “debris” by the United Church on the Green.

Christian Bruckhart, the New Haven Police Department’s communications officer, told the News that the department had crews on the Green over the weekend “power washing one of the churches because it was covered in feces,” which Matteson attributed to encampment participants, Bruckhart also called the propane tanks, used at the encampment to heat water, a “safety and health hazard.”

The anonymous U-ACT organizer told the News that the defecation was from a group of “drunk students.” Matteson said that he had not heard of an alternate source of the defecation.

Elicker added that encampment participants had claimed the Green for themselves when it “should be meant for everyone.”

Monday’s arrests

Matteson told the News that he had been on the Green on Monday since about 7 a.m. and that some NHPD officers arrived around 8 a.m. About ten more officers arrived by 10 a.m. according to Borer, the NHPD’s downtown district manager. 

Sergeant Justin Cole, who leads the NHPD’s Crowd Control team, directed the arrests, which began at 11:15 a.m. 

Officers took one person at a time into custody, with some being forcibly removed from the tents and carried to the police cars and others agreeing to be handcuffed and escorted to the cars. Officers dismantled individual tents before regrouping and arresting the next individual. 

As the first arrest was made of Colville, U-ACT’s lead organizer, protesters chanted, “Where then shall we go,” which has been the question guiding the encampment since its establishment. Other chants included, “Displacement is a crime from New Haven to Palestine” and “Fund housing, defund police.” 

Around thirty Yale students were present at the encampment this morning. They were affiliated with the Endowment Justice Collective, according to Adam Nussbaum ’25, who told the News that word got out among student organizing channels this morning about the impending confrontation with city authorities. Nussbaum and one other student were among the seven arrested.

“​​The activists that have been organized in this have often given misinformation or misconstrued the city’s work and have even encouraged people that are homeless not to accept services by the city,” Elicker said. “What the activists are doing does a disservice to individuals experiencing homelessness and a disservice to the city.” 

U-ACT organizers — many of whom were arrested — could not be immediately reached to respond to Elicker’s accusation that they had been misinforming unhoused participants. 

Monique Wilson, who has been participating in the encampment, did not want to face arrest because of her ongoing job search. She said the organizers asked all of the participants if they were willing to face the possibility of arrest.

Borer told the News around 11:50 a.m. that he had contacted the Yale Police Department’s Captain John Healy for another cruiser. Shortly after, a YPD vehicle with three officers drove up to the side of the Green on College Street. YPD officers spoke to the NHPD officers but did not approach the activists.

YPD officers at the Green told the News that they are instructed not to comment to the media. 

A Yale Public Safety spokesperson wrote to the News on behalf of YPD Assistant Chief Rose Dell that YPD was “not involved in the activity on the New Haven Green,” declining to respond to specific inquiries pertaining to communications between the two police departments.

After the arrests, a remaining group of activists — mostly Yale students — stayed on the Green, singing and waving signs. 

A $2,500 bond was set for each arrested individual, according to NHPD’s Bruckhart. Around 1:30 p.m., the Yalies4Palestine student group began fundraising through its Instagram page to bond out the arrested individuals. As of 3:30 p.m., the seven arrested were all still at the NHPD’s detention center but “in the process” of being bonded out, Bruckhart said.

The New Haven Police Department’s headquarters are located at 1 Union Ave.