Residents React to Baltimore Riots
By Celeste Roche | Correspondent at April 30, 2024 | 6:15 pm | Print
Racial tensions and issues of police brutality have come to the forefront of our national interest, due to recent deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement. Many residents have strong opinions on whether similar events could happen in New Britain.
“I don’t think something like that could happen here in New Britain,” says Daniel Solomon. “I would be surprised if it did.” Solomon, who is black, says that he has not experienced any bias when interacting with local law enforcement, though he says that his experience may be different because he is also visibly Jewish.
“Our police officers do a very good job,” Solomon says. “There’s a lot of communal involvement. The Chief of Police has gone out of his way to assure that there is that dialogue between our communities and the police force.”
Solomon blames “vicarious experiences of culture,” including music and movies, for perpetuating the idea that police only exist to harass minorities.
“[Young black men can be] so distrusting of police officers that [they] can’t even communicate with them,” added Solomon.
He says that while there has been no shortage of legitimate issues throughout the country, they aren’t the reality for our city.
“I don’t believe that distrust [of our officers] is warranted,” he said.
Solomon said his belief that the incidents in national headlines won’t spread to our community is bolstered by routinely witnessing officers performing acts of kindness, such as purchasing food for members of the homeless population or simply throwing a football around with kids in the neighborhood.
Still, he believes that there’s always room for improvement and that if our police force can put officers through additional training to learn about racial issues, it would be worthwhile. He also thinks that having officers introduce themselves in local schools and educate students about the realities of policing will help to combat the stereotypes churned out by mainstream media.
Alfred Mayo, a resident who is known for being outspoken on many issues, agrees that education is key to preserving peace and forwarding justice in our community.
“There needs to be more diversity and representation on our police force,” he says, but he puts the responsibility for that on the entire city. “We need lawyers, judges, cops, doctors—more representation.”
He said he thinks that strengthening families and schools and empowering students to “be the change they want to see” will result in greater minority representation in local law enforcement. “Color won’t be a problem, then,” Mayo said.
Mayo added that although he has no doubt that the events plaguing the country are horrific, he said that there are occasions for strong young leaders to emerge and push change forward.
“There isn’t a single leader of the black community in New Britain who is charismatic and respected and able to strongly influence opinion on a major scale,” according to Mayo. He says that if we were to have a significant incident with assumed racial bias, there’d be a long list of people to call in order to assure that response remains civil and productive. He does still believe that the predominantly black churches in the city are good about supporting positive dialogue on issues related to race.
“It’s hard for a city that is already economically depressed to see positive [social] changes,” says Mayo. “If people are working and have their basic needs met, they won’t have any time to worry about race.”
Mayo asserts that although he doesn’t think our community would experience such a major problem, we need to “let elected officials know that we don’t want to deal with the aftermath, we want prevention.”
If we do not take an active stance, he feels we may lose sight of the issue. “We all can work together on this. Let’s start talking,” he said.
Other black men throughout the city provided comment, with the overwhelming majority of them being positive about New Britain’s police force, but many asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject and “raw nerves” in the wake of events in Baltimore. One man even stated that he didn’t “need people deleting [him] on Facebook over an opinion.”
