An examination of the impact of police violence on community and public health became a shared experience for 200 New York and New Jersey high school students attending a recent Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) Change Talk entitled “Violence is a Disease: Examining the Public Health Impact of Policing.”
The Nov. 4 talk, led by YSPH Activist in Residence Angelo Pinto, brought national civil rights attorney Ben Crump to Yale to discuss his continuing fight for justice for victims of police brutality, including 36-year-old Randy Cox, a New Haven resident.
In June 2022, Cox was paralyzed from the chest down after suffering a spinal injury while in New Haven police custody. Cox was taken into custody for illegally carrying a firearm (all charges have since been dropped). While detained in the back of a police transport van without a seatbelt, a sudden stop hurled Cox into an interior wall, leaving him unable to move and complaining of injury. At the detention center, Cox was removed from the van and held in a cell before an ambulance crew arrived for hospital transport. The incident was captured on video in the van and on police body cameras.
In July, hundreds of protestors joined Crump and the Cox family in a march calling for justice. In September, Crump and the family announced a $100 million federal lawsuit against the City of New Haven and the five suspended police officers.
Prior to the YSPH event on Nov. 4, Pinto and the visiting students joined Crump, Cox’s family, Cox’s legal team, and national activist Tamika Mallory on the steps of New Haven City Hall to counter a city press conference regarding the incident going on inside. Crump called for Mayor Justin Elicker to speed up the city’s response to the suit. Crump said Elicker’s explanation that the city wants justice for Cox, but needs to follow procedures, rings hollow.
At the Change Talk, Crump said the day’s activism was about speaking “truth to power.”
“We went to the press conference because Randy Cox’s life is at stake. When [Mayor Elicker] said, ‘We’re doing everything we can do...’ well, no, you’re not doing everything,” said Crump. “We believe, if Randy Cox was a young white man, that this case would have been resolved by now. Why is it different? Why are there different sets of rules when it’s a black person?”
YSPH Assistant Professor Ijeoma Opara helped develop the Activist in Residence program, which was launched in February 2022. Pinto is the first to hold the position. Opara said Pinto’s work to bring some of the world’s most prominent activists to Yale to speak and inspire students is a core part of the initiative.
During the Change Talk, Mallory, a 2017 national Women's March organizer, emphasized the privilege students have to learn about social justice from individuals at the heart of reform efforts. Mallory said Pinto is, “...one of the most important and brilliant thought leaders of our generation.”
Pinto, an attorney, activist, and political strategist is co-founder of Until Freedom, an intersectional social justice organization. Until Freedom addresses systemic and racial injustice while working for police accountability and criminal justice reform. Pinto said undertaking social justice change is the work of many.
In order for freedom to actually happen or justice to take place, it isn’t just one person, it isn’t just two people, it isn’t an organization; … there are lots of factors that go into justice actually occurring for individuals.
Angelo Pinto
“In order for freedom to actually happen or justice to take place, it isn’t just one person, it isn’t just two people, it isn’t an organization; … there are lots of factors that go into justice actually occurring for individuals,” Pinto said.
Encouraged to suggest solutions to address police violence in their communities, students at the Change Talk called for better police training.
“The issue is that the training, it seems, works only in certain communities. And that’s what we have to acknowledge,” Mallory responded. “When they’re in our communities, somehow that training gets turned off, or at least it is not as effective. And I would submit the reason why that is the case is because training has to be done alongside accountability.”
Mallory thanked the students for their activism earlier in the day.
“We appreciate you being there. We need you to be in the room. It really depends on you to help us to make sure people care about our concerns,” she said. “But there is no way that we should be pulling students from fun things and educational activities to have to fight for basic human values and for our lives. We shouldn’t have to do that, but we must.”
Crump said more progress needs to be made, but “landmark victories” in recent years show that change is possible if everyone works together.
“We can’t do this on our own. It’s got to be a team effort,” Crump said. “It's too much of a burden for one person by themselves. It’s about us working together to lift each other up. We make progress only when we come together.”