Posted on 07/26/2008 9:49:37 AM PDT by Drew68
(Updated) Mayor John DeStefano, offering new details about a dirt bike-van collision that led to a crowd beating a driver and a 15 year-old boy losing his life, renewed a call to tackle the challenge of disconnected teens.
DeStefano made the remarks at an unrelated City Hall press event in the wake of a Wednesday afternoon incident that has shocked the city.
The incident occurred between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Wednesday. A 15 year-old boy racing a stolen Honda dirt bike up and down Shepard Street ran into the back of a van. A crowd of his friends subsequently beat the driver, badly.
Both the driver and the biker went to Yale-New Haven Hospital as police blocked off Read and Shepard streets around 5 p.m. Wednesday and dealt with a chaotic scene.
The boy, Quinell Payne, died from his injuries at 3:34 a.m. at Yale-New Haven, according to hospital spokesman Mark DAntonio.
The driver, believed to be in his 50s, was also seriously hurt, though not as severely as the boy. (Mayoral spokesman Jessica Mayorga said Thrusday afternoon that the drivers condition was stable. He remained in the hospital. His name wasnt released.)
DeStefano said Thursday that the driver will survive his injuries. He said at Quinel Payne had a history of trouble with the law and was out on juvenile probation. He also said some members of Paynes family have had legal problems, too.
I say that not to characterize the kid as a bad kid, DeStefano said. Theres a group of kids who are disconnected. That poses a challenge to us.
(The mayors spokeswoman released a statement at 4:47 p.m. Thursday that further elaborated on Quinell Payne: Payne, who mostly recently attended Hillhouse High School in New Haven, was well-known to New Haven Police. The City made numerous efforts, over the course of several years, to engage Payne through the services of four separate City agencies: the Board of Education, Youth at Work (where he began a job he later abandoned), the Street Outreach Workers Program and the New Haven Department of Police Services. She also reported that the van drivers name would remain private until further notice for the benefit of the investigation and the individuals safety.)
The mayor was at pains not to have reporters misconstrue his statements. He made it clear that he considers the kids actions and the actions of the crowd that beat the driver unacceptable, unacceptable. He stressed that he was making no excuses for the misbehavior.
Rather, he said the incident underscores a point hes been making often lately that a hard-care group of 200-300 young people in the city appear to be beyond the reach of social programs, that everyone from government to families needs to work together to engage them.
They develop their own set of values and are disconnected from family and society.
Stolen Bike
Mayor DeStefano said Thursday that police initially got a call around 1 p.m. Wednesday about kids taking turns racing around Newhallville on a stolen dirt bike. The cops werent able to track the kids down.
Then at 4:33 p.m. police got the call about the collision. They arrived at the scene by 4:37 p.m., he said.
This neighbor, like a dozen other witnesses interviewed at the scene, declined to be identified.
The driver of the van emerged from his vehicle and looked at the dirt-bike rider sprawled in the street. The van driver was dazed, witnesses said.
A mother and daughter on Shepard watched the scene unfold from a front porch. They said that three teenaged boys who are friends of Quinell set on the driver. They kicked him. They punched him. They stomped him. More kids joined the fray as many as 12, in some witnesses estimation.
For hours thereafter officers interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence.
The woman said she and others watched the events unfold from her porch on Shepard Street. Hes riding up and down the street. Its a hot day, he has nothing do, she said. Drivers run that stop sign all the time, she said, making the street more dangerous.
She and others interrupted their tale to watch a brief report about the incident on the 6 oclock TV news. They were outraged that the report focused on the drivers injuries, not Quinells.
Its sad that they beat the guy up, the woman said, resuming her tale. Youve got to understand, that was his friends. All they see is their friend lying lifeless. They were feeling a kind of rage.
She and two others on the block complained that it took an ambulance at least 15 minutes to arrive. Then they walked by [the boy lying on the ground] to check on the driver.
According to initial unconfirmed reports, the boy had an open skull fracture between his eyes and a shattered femur; the driver suffered severe head injuries from the beating.
And to read the comments from this town's mayor? What an idiot! He's talking about kids who are "disconnected" and exhibiting "unacceptable" behavior. Um, these "kids" are violent, predatory criminals and need to be in prison.
The net result of the Obama presidency will be the assignment of each and every urban black to a white person and possibly certain uncle toms. His upkeep, medical plan and job less pay allowances will be come your priviledge and responsibility.
Obama is their Messiah who will lift them up out of their miserable existance. he will put down the man
Unlike a slave that might be productive and a benefit, your black will be a drag on your being.
Another article quoted the boy’s father as saying something like they were justified in the attack because the driver tried to flee. We now know he is a liar too because others said this was not true. If they guy had fled, I would hardly have blamed him because perhaps he knew what fate awaited him.
Still, he did the right thing.
If he was white I suppose word will get out and make its way to the blogosphere. But I would not assume he was. There have been cases where black motorists were assaulted by other blacks in neighborhoods like this. I think it was in FL a few years ago where a guy’s car hit a kid and he was dragged out and beaten to death. All involved were black.
The neighbor complains he was outside (breaking the law by carelessly riding the bike) because he had nothing else to do. Well I guess that means we need more “programs!” All Bush’s fault ultimately. We’ve been hearing for decades that more government programs are needed. How did we who were raised as recently as the 1970s manage to grow up and stay out of trouble without “programs?!”
This statement, in spite of the derision in some of the posts here is just about the most honest state thing Ive heard a liberal politician say in a very long time.
The responsibility of parents is to indoctrinate, mould, and teach children to fit into their particular society. Societies may be different from one to another, but the job of parent never does. In general the overall variations on acceptable behavior will fit close enough. If not, then the very act of being trained in one acceptable lifestyle is allows temporary or permanent changes to fit into another.
These kids (And many, many thousand like them) have failed become part of our culture to the extent that they CAN NOT live within it. The behavior is so outside Normal that no words or standard punishment will work, because they see nothing wrong in what they do, they have developed their own culture and defend it against us, the (in their view) outsiders. The mayor sees the problem, but I bet cash money he lacks the skills or will to propose the only viable solutions. That of course is to remove them from our society and attempt to retrain them and failing that to simply remove them. I doubt many here would have that will.
Cruel, hard, uncharitable, bastard. I admit to all. But I still Im correct.
Poor editing.. ;)
What a simple but salient point you made.
The only disconnected people in New Haven are the Democrats that run the city. They'd rather see hoodlums stay "enagaged" than see their citizens safe in the streets.
But wait a moment, Isn't the socialization of Public Schooling supposed to prevent all this kind of stuff?
Weasel words. We just can't come out and say what things really are.
“In New Haven theyre called democrats.”
A truer word never spoken. Used to work in NH in the late ‘60s. I well remember the Summer of 1967 when Blacks rioted for several days in NH. It was a mess then, and it only has gotten worse.
As for DeStefano, he is a left wing Democrat who wants NH to be an amnesty city.
You have a point. I mean, we're not talking about a dozen or so ne'er-do-wells. We're talking about 200-300 young people! What percentage of the community is this? What percentage of young people as a whole in this community do 200-300 people represent? I'm betting quite a bit.
Avoid African American neighborhoods in any major urban area. The basic rules of reason, justice, good and evil do not apply. It’s just too dangerous.
Newhallville is one of the most dangerous neighbor hoods in Connecticut. Newhallville is a foreboding area even during the daytime with low overhanging, untrimmed trees blocking out most of the sunlight, fire hydrants illegally opened, and the streets (mostly one-way) are impossible to negotiate because street and traffic signs are either missing or vandalized.
I spoke to the guy who was driving the National Guard truck that got lost in New Haven that started one of those riots then
He genuinely was looking for a pizza parlor when the crowd saw them and panicked!
The story was so funny
I thought that Bill Clinton's Midnight Basketball was supposed to have cured all of this!
“I say that not to characterize the kid as a bad kid, DeStefano said. Theres a group of kids who are disconnected. .”
In my day a kid who stole a motorbike was considered a bad kid. So “disconnected” is the new bad?
“Some boys who identified themselves as Quinell s friends insisted the van driver was at fault
“
He rearended the van! It wasn’t like the van hit him head on. This little thug gangster smashed into it.
They've really turned into "no-go" zones. They weren't always like this. Of course, the mayor tries to minimize the reality of this neighborhood by talking of "only" 200-300 problem kids as though this is a small number of bad apples.
How dare this van driver find himself in the way of a kid blowing through stop signs on a stolen motorbike! The nerve of him!
These are not humans. These are feral, non-habilitated beings.
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