The Further Decline of New Haven

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This very morning marks the first morning that I was
at a stop sign thick a night, you know, five
o'clock in the morning, and I bugged out that I
could get carjacked. Never thought that, never sweat that, never sweated.
In all the years that I drove in here, the

(00:23):
only fear I ever felt was of getting pulled over
by cops. I did not ever feel a fear. And
I drove through some sketule parts of New Haven. I
just feel like the gang bangers and the guys up
to no good. They could give a crap about the
used car that I was driving or what little chump chair.

(00:45):
Damn man, I was going to the worst parts of
New Haven, to places terrifying places, you know, and copping
stuff and leaving and you can say whatever you want
people listening right now. I go, well, you're fifty eight
now and it has zero to do, zero to do

(01:06):
it that Today was the first day that I just
thought it is possible. Now. You know. My daughter's car
broke down once a couple of years ago, the middle
of the day. She said it. She was surrounded by
men in under a minute in her broken down car, screaming, crying,

(01:26):
you know, panic attack, she hated catching red lights during
her commute because every time she caught a red light, change, change, change.
It's just not mine, that's just not my story. I
walked it. I would walk the craziest streets and it

(01:47):
wasn't the obliviousness of youth. And they're sure there was crime.
There were horrible stories. Then the final homicide of the eighties.
I was painting a house right down the street. I
remember it was in the newspaper, you know. It was
the week between Christmas and New Year's. The guy got popped.
We all ran over to him. I watched the guy die.

(02:09):
Not too far from here, it would be it would
be not far from the hot spot. If you're a
new hit iykyk. There's a couple of blocks over from
the hotspots where we were eating lunch. I was painting
for HUD, for the housing authority. I'll never forget this
sound because it doesn't really guns don't really sound like guns,
sound like sticks cracking. But everybody started running. You follow

(02:32):
the crowd. Guy was holding his neck laying on the ground.
Wound up being the last last homicide of nineteen eighty
nine and of the eighties. That's how it was written.
Up in the paper the next night, and it was like, hey, look,
ma I saw it. So I mean, I'm not trying
to paint some picture of but I never felt how
I felt today. I felt like, and I mean to

(02:57):
Subaru Forester. I don't think there's a violent gang of
lesbians out there looking to drag me from vi Subaru Forest.
There a couple of blocks over from Archie Moores, in
between Archie Morris and Hill House. At five o'clock in
the morning, there is an arrogance in our streets and

(03:19):
an aggression and an entitlement almost and what's her give
it to me? And just the robberies are still comfortable
constantly reiterating crime is down, it's crazy, crime is like
which again, bend your statistics and compared to twenty twenty

(03:39):
two doesn't matter to me. I'm not living in twenty
twenty two. I lived through it. But it's twenty twenty five.
Nobody cares about Oh, you want to talk about a
bad year, this was it. Nobody cares about that at all.
We care about right now and how things are right now.
There's and all is new in the big sem of things,
as is the met adderall make you do some crazy

(04:03):
ass things. People are out there out of their mind,
and as you were saying off the air, there's a
weird sort of I don't care that it's two o'clock
in the afternoon. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
You know I'm not And if a cop comes and

(04:23):
throws me down on the ground, chances are real good
everybody who films is gonna be with me. And that's
if one even shows up. That's the America we inhabit
right now. That's the Connecticut we had in habit right now.
Thanks to Chubby, I mean thanks to the governor signing
the police reform build that he did five years ago

(04:43):
that he won't walk back. This is all a byproduct
of that. All of the thirteen year olds that I
was reporting on in twenty twenty for carjackings at gas
stations at gunpoint are now the eight eighteen year olds
killing each other. And that's what the Democrats hang their

(05:03):
hat on. But they knew each other, well, he knew
he was killing. Oh okay, interesting eulogy. That should be touching.
I don't know what I'm supposed to Oh who he
shot in the face in broad daylight? Right on a
very busy street where people were walking the dog parks
right there. Oh yeah, he knew him. Well, that'll really
bring really at the church where the pastor is telling

(05:28):
little boys to become little girls and keep it secret
from their parents. That don't make a lot of people cry.
That's a beautiful eulogy. This is a mess, that's all
it is is a mess.