Hamden Students Speak Out On School Violence, Threats

By Nora Grace-Flood, New Haven Independent

December 13, 2021

After three days off school due to gun violence threats, Fin Powers wasn’t sure what to expect when he returned to Hamden High.

So he prepared the best he could for the unknown. Following an anonymous Snapchat post in which a now arrested 13-year-old suggested intent to shoot up both Hamden High and Middle Schools, Powers read through a letter from his principal laying out new protocol for having students pass through a metal detector each day.

Observing the administration’s advice, he woke up an hour earlier than usual for the first day back to school on Wednesday. He made a point to leave his backpack at home, and managed to land near the front of a 1,700-student line wrapping around campus.

While he awaited his first encounter with the weapon-detecting wands, he exchanged Spongebob-themed memes making light of the situation with some close friends.

“I was anxious,” Powers recalled. During his 20 minute wait in the frigid air (for others, it took up to two hours to get inside), he thought: “If it beeps, I’m gonna cry.”

Why was he so nervous? Principal Nadine Gannon’s letter to the student body included a special note pointing out that “just because the wand may sense metal on you, this does not mean you did something wrong!”

The fear, Powers figured, probably came from the fact that “the whole school” would be watching him. And if there was one lesson Powers had learned from school and social media, it’s that kids can be “fucking mean.”

On Thursday evening, a host of Hamden teenagers experienced a macro version of the nerves felt by Powers and countless others on their first day back.

In front of television cameras, town leaders, and a crowded live audience, seven students made their way to a podium in Hamden’s Legislative Council Chambers to share their feelings and opinions regarding recent incidents of school violence and threatened violence with those who produce local policy.

They did so as part of a community forum organized by Hamden’s Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships (SPCP) Council, featuring local youth professionals, Mayor Lauren Garrett, Hamden police representatives, social workers, and school administrators. (Watch the full meeting video here.)

“It’s as if we’re walking into a jail facility,” sophomore Hunmae McCollum asserted. Additional school resource officers and metal detectors are only “reinforcing the school to prison pipeline,” she said.

“I can tell you right now, I did not feel safe going to school yesterday,” shared freshman Amanda Oram. “I knew the metal detectors were there to help us … it just felt kind of invasive, you know?

Why is this happening?

In addition to asking for concrete investments in after-school and community programming, accessible and long-term mental health supports, and efforts to bring more women of color into staff and security positions, many of the students asked adults in charge: Why do you think the rise in violence is happening?

“Why do students feel compelled to bring weapons to school?” questioned sophomore Ayanna Lovieno.

“Why do we wanna stab each other?”

“Why would students threaten the school?”

“Would they rather be somewhere else?”

With each student that rose to speak, the questions kept coming.

Students aimed to highlight the limited information held by school officials regarding what it’s like to be a teenager today, pointing out that a qualitative and nuanced understanding of teenage life should be informing school policy.

“You only see the social media post when they send it to you,” Amanda Oram said, illustrating a culture of consistent fighting and online harassment, and noting the awkward and severe sense of accountability held by students to inform those with power about disturbing messages that infiltrate their feeds on the daily.

Not Isolated Events; Results Of Isolation

A student carrying a loaded gun into the high school the previous month, McCollum told the audience, should have been a wake-up call to administration. Or, she suggested, the stabbing of a 14-year-old just off campus. Both events, like the “non-credible” social media threats, were indicative of students’ long-term mental health concerns.

Students were the first reporters of each of those incidents.

“The blatant disregard that staff of schools, the Board of Education, as well as Hamden as a whole has towards students is clear,” McCollum said. Action was taken, she noted, only after parents lobbied for security measures following the gun threats.

All of the incidents above might have caught the intention of the broader public, but the truth, McCollum said, is that students are struggling every day. Proactive and long-term health support systems are necessary, she argued, pointing to increasing suicide rates among youth people.

Every statement by the high schoolers revealed the same conclusion: Teens are often choosing to fight one another rather than forming community with other youth, perhaps the outcome of months alone at home during the pandemic and more time spent in — or on — substitute virtual spaces, like Discord channels and Instagram pages.

In other words, the violent events which have made headlines at Hamden High this fall are not isolated. Rather, they are tied together by an underlying and nagging sense of isolation endured by students.

Freshman Mahoganie Thompson focused on that sense of fragmentation in her public statement. She recalled how “I couldn’t come back to reality” after watching “someone that I see walking around the halls and going to class with” stabbed multiple times.

What eventually grounded her was a simple question — “How are you doing?” — from another teenage girl who noticed her dissociative state.

“From there we gathered other girls,” she said, bringing a team of teenagers together to form “The Community Alliance Against Violence,” to allow both students and teachers to come together and talk in a shared physical space within the school.

"I'll Be Honest ..."

Thompson’s speech highlighted the skills that teens have to contribute to the search for solutions. More than just sources of information, kids are uniquely inquisitive, sensitive, and drawn to social connection.

Away from the microphones and cameras, and on their way to Panera post school dismissal Wednesday afternoon, Powers and friends debriefed and candidly compared their experiences throughout the past week.

Despite his anxieties about metal detectors, Powers said, he found the general chaos surrounding the gun threats “hilarious.”

“It’s not funny. It’s tragic,” his friend Julian Jenkins responded.

“I’m like, terrified,” pitched in Emmalie Intile, a third friend who joined the conversation.

That exchange prompted Powers to think about why he found the situation funny.

Perhaps it was the predictability of public school education — the absurd dynamic of kids risking arrest to get a day off from school or follow a TikTok trend, and the community’s reaction to what he saw as evidently false threats.

Or maybe it was his distance from the situation: “We’re not really involved,” he said, noting that he himself hasn’t been physically attacked or personally known anyone directly impacted by the recent incidents.

Also, “I’m a gemini moon,” Powers revealed. “I have a god complex.”

Really, Powers and Intile agreed, humor is a “coping strategy.”

Just as Powers and his friends recognized the dynamic and varied reasons that such a scary situation could simultaneously be read as funny to those experiencing it, they understood that no “one answer” exists to the multifaceted problems facing youth and the broader community.

The metal detectors are “truly, really unneeded,” Jenkins said, describing them as “intrusive” and asserting that security did not treat his belongings — including a school laptop — “with enough respect.”

But the detectors, Powers and Intile argued, could also be read as the administration finally deciding to take precautions.

After the stabbing, for example, “nothing happened,” Powers said. He had made a bet with his grandmother in early fall that Hamden High wouldn’t bring in metal detectors, because he had never heard of the high school making changes to disrupt the “gun, knife, gun, knife” pattern he’d observed since transferring from Sacred Heart two years ago.

“Now, I owe her twenty dollars,” he said.

From Jenkins’ perspective, metal detectors pose practical concerns. He noticed, for example, that female students seemed to be pushed into one line and boys into another, providing kids with same-sex security guards who would be wanding their bodies for weapons.

“What if you’re trans?” or non-binary, they inquired.

For Powers, the concern with metal detectors was linked not to practice but to anticipation. He said he worried “the beepy thingies” would go off while he was in line. Once he got into the building Wednesday, he was comforted by the familiar faces of security guards he sees each day.

“It was like, hey, good morning, I know you,” Powers

The trio of students seemed to agree that though there are reasons to be skeptical of policing, they are relatively comfortable with cops and security guards in their school because they have genuine connections with them.

“Everyone loves Lamond Battle,” they agreed. Battle is a security guard who doubles as adviser to the Black and Hispanic Student Union. Other guards are less popular, but that’s how real communities naturally are, they reflected.

In fact, they said, more students probably know the security guards, who walk around school hallways throughout the day, than they know mental health professionals.

The only reason Intile knew of school psychologists, they said, was because they’re part of the school’s “Active Minds Club.”

There is a gap, Intile asserted, between paying for school counselors and actually building bonds and trust between them and the students.

“I don’t want to go up to my teacher and say, hey, I want to talk to someone,” Powers confirmed. He might go to school counseling if he knew the staff and could find a direct line of access.

In the meantime, the group said, they confide in their favorite gym teacher rather than unknown counselors.

But, Powers said of school administration, “I honestly do believe they’re trying their best.”

Jenkins, who expressed skepticism about security guards dividing kids by assumed gender, agreed that those in charge were at least doing so in hopes of protecting students, not consciously perpetuating intentional harm against minorities.

They all praised Nadine Gannon, saying that she sent out a Google form after the threats allowing students to select whether or not they would want to meet with a counselor, including an option to do so “in a few days” rather than immediately.

“She’s listening to us,” Powers said.

More importantly, he added, Gannon was being real with them. “I’ll be honest,” Powers said Gannon wrote in a letter to the students. “I don’t have all the solutions.”

Alongside her self-produced instructive video showing school staff going through the metal detecting process, which Powers said reminded him of a Kesha music video, Gannon’s statement of vulnerability made Powers actually feel safer. He liked knowing that Hamden High teachers, staff, and leadership were grappling with changing circumstances rather than just giving into parents’ lobbying for severe changes.

Gannon’s confession invited students into the process and made space for their perspectives. An it confirmed their gut recognition that “there really is no perfect solution,” as Powers put it, just as all human beings — even those in positions of authority — are flawed individuals.

Shared solutions

After students spoke on Thursday, adults provided them with a standing ovation — and then offered their own responses.

Youth organizers like Melissa Atterbury-Jones of the Village, Cheryl Kasprzycki of Hamden Youth Connections, and Sue Rubino of Hamden Youth Services informed students and parents about what programming they offer.

Atterbury-Jones, for example, highlighted the fact that she self-funds her youth center with no support from the town, providing under the radar opportunities like “Teen Talk” groups and open space to box and dance.

“These are resources that are in the community, so utilize them,” Rubino urged students, adding that the town could build new programming if kids provide specific requests as to what they want.

Hamden parent Wes Stover, who used to work as a theater teacher in Bridgeport, recalled how he used to assign students with writing their own plays about “issues that were happening in their neighborhoods,” and was able to uncover misconceptions students had about “sex, violence… and voting.” The activity also encouraged innovation and creativity among students.

“You have to trust students… Give students the responsibility, they can do it,” Stover said. Ultimately, however, he laughed, “I got in trouble with my principal because it seemed like I was giving them too much responsibility… it seemed like I wasn’t doing anything.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Superintendent Jody Goeler said that the high school still has to work out how to approach communications that keep students and parents calm and informed, perhaps by hiring a public information officer. He said the forum was useful in highlighting “divergent points of view” that both “strengthened beliefs about what we’re doing” and “questioned some of the beliefs.”

Before attendees parted ways after the two hour talk, Legislative Council Representative and Public Safety Committee Chair Adrian Webber looked to the students who had spoken up at the event.

“I just want to be clear that I heard you … Not only do we hear you; we thank you.”

From their front row seats, sophomores Alianna Wray, Hunmae McCollum, and Ayanna Iovieno nodded in reciprocal thanks.

“We are the connective tissue, the community,” Webber said. The purpose of communities built on intergenerational partnerships, he continued, is to “to ensure that your concerns and our expertise mesh together.

“If we’re not doing our job, you’re supposed to say you’re not doing your job. Hold us accountable and expect us to be transparent with our answers.”

“Amen,” Wray said.

In the meantime, event moderator and SPCP President Jacqueline Beirne said she will soon send out a survey (available alongside other resources and contact information on SPCP’s Facebook page) to the community regarding their perceptions of school resource officers in schools — and whether or not Hamden High should have them. SPCP will also hold another event to follow up with work done by school administrators, police, and the town in January, though the date is not yet scheduled.

And, on Sunday, a small group of around eight parents and students walked not to “rally against” failed authority (in the words of lead organizer Karlen Meinsen), but in solidarity with police and school administration from Hamden High to Town Hall. Those who attended said the rally was one piece of early efforts to “reinforce” the message that even as Hamden brings in metal detectors, the town as a whole must develop a strong but malleable plan to “detect emotional security” of students and staff in addition to immediate physical safety.

That rally, a follow-up to a special Board of Education meeting held Mondayand the SPCP forum Thursday, both of which were called to address acts of violence in Hamden schools, sought to send the message that student wellbeing is an ongoing and evolving question that requires an entire community of students, parents, staff, administration, government leaders, and youth allies to unpack.

Goeler, who joined Sunday’s walk, told the Independent that Hamden’s numbered and united responses to recent school events have modeled strong citizenship to students. “It’s not just about giving remarks at a meeting,” Goeler said.

“It’s follow through, and a continued effort to be a part of the community,” he concluded.

As for Fin Powers, depending on how much time he has between homework and applying for college, he may just add another work of art to his meme collection: An edit of Gannon’s metal detecting video, with Kesha playing in the background.

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.