During the sunny Saturday afternoon last week, Andrew Woods walked the Blue Hills neighborhood with the Hartford Communities That Care team carrying a stack of flyers with mental health resources for merchants and neighbors. It had been roughly 24 hours after the city’s second shooting of a resident by a police officer.
“We remind folks that there are still victims and families and neighbors that are impacted and who need the support and services that we can tap them into,” Woods, the executive director of the organization, said.
Woods’ canvassing was one of the various community responses to the recent deaths of Everard Walker and Steven Jones, two Black men who were both brandishing knives and whose families had requested mental health support before they were shot by Hartford police, according to the reports from the Office of Inspector General.
In the days following the shootings, community organizations and faith leaders have created a support network for the neighborhoods affected. From providing advocacy and helping residents process their grief to connecting them with mental health resources and training for violence prevention.
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Advocates say their work has been rooted in supporting the Hartford Black community, and when these incidents with the police happens, it “makes us restart all over again,” Pastor AJ Johnson said.
When Walker was fatally shot following the 211 call that prompted police officers to arrive at his apartment, where his teen and young adults daughters also were, advocates hosted a press conference demanding justice and accountability at City Hall.
Then Black Lives Matter chapter ‘BLM860’ organized a protest in front of the Hartford Public Safety Complex immediately after Jones died from his injuries. A rally with members of the The Greater Hartford branch of the NAACP and the Self-Defense Brigade took place later in the week as well.
Still, the shock remains, community leaders say, and organizations are working together to alleviate lingering trauma while the Office of Inspector General and the City of Hartford civilian police review board continue the shooting investigations.
“People are working together — some are talking about healing, of more resources into the community. Others are talking about arresting the police officer that did this, and well, everything is necessary,” Ivelisse Correa-Brown, executive director of ‘The Good Trouble Coalition’ and vice president of ‘BLM860’, said.
The Hartford Police Department did not respond to the Connecticut Mirror’s request for comment.
Grassroots response on the ground
The Saturday afternoon canvassing was meant as a check-in to connect with merchants, residents and clergy and ask how they were, as well as an opportunity to share flyers explaining what trauma symptoms are — such as being always on guard, difficulty sleeping, flashbacks, negative thinking and lack of concentration.
The nonprofit community based organization Hartford Communities That Care, for almost 30 years has been identifying, developing and implementing culturally appropriate, evidence-based crisis response, mental health and supportive programs, partnerships and policies, to improve the lives of youth and adult victims of crime and their families.
Woods remembered a particular merchant who knew Jones, since he used to come to his store often.
“He (the merchant) certainly understood that there were people in Blue Hills who had challenges from a mental health standpoint, and that folks who do needed more support in the neighborhood, to not just receive clinical care elsewhere, but that they needed to know that the residents and the merchants themselves also supported them,” Woods said.
Hartford Communities That Care’s canvassing was not a one-time event. They are partnering with the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition to keep knocking on doors and talking with the neighborhood residents through a Blue Hills Listening Neighborhood Campaign happening from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 7 and from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on March 8.
“Too often decisions and narratives are formed without meaningful input from the people who live in the neighborhood most impacted. Our goal is to ensure that the voices of residents are centered at this moment,” Johnson said in a statement from the coalition.
Spaces to grieve and find support
Johnson leads the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition and is pastor of Hope Urban Refuge Church. He attended the rally in front of the Hartford Public Safety Complex with his 8-year-old son over the weekend, but had to leave quickly because his son started to ask questions about why the police shot Jones.
“Now he has a very good view of the police and I don’t think it’s time to share with him that police can also do this,” Johnson said. “These are the conversations that we have with Black and brown kids at the age of 8. I don’t think that happens in white communities around whether they should trust or distrust police.”
That same Saturday, Hartford faith-based Mothers United Against Violence hosted therapeutic mental health and coping activities centering the history of gun violence and trauma in Black communities.
Johnson hosted religious services that Sunday, giving space for residents to digest and grieve in community. “I think faith leaders are called to be stabilizers after these recent shootings,” he said. “No one really has time to process their emotions and their feelings.”
On Wednesday, at a vigil organized by Mothers United Against Violence, Johnson arrived and offered a prayer. Members of the mother’s group, Walker’s family and advocates, held hands and in unison bowed their heads to listen.
“Father God, I’m asking you to have our city and state department lay in rest on the side of the people, we can no longer mourn anymore,” Johnson said in his prayer.
Mothers United Against Violence has been supporting Walker’s family since Walker was sent to the hospital almost three weeks ago.
“We’ve been right with violence for so many years,” Rev. Henry Brown, co-founder of Mothers United Against Violence.
The vigil took place close to where Walker used to work as a mechanic and at times fixed other people’s cars for free.
Walker’s daughter, Menen Walker, said the mothers “have been really kind people and very patient they have been with us this whole time.”
She said she has had sleepless nights and lack of appetite since the fatal shooting of her father, who used to drive her to work with her favorite Dunkin’ Donuts drink and helped her with her candle business. Still, Menen Walker said she appreciates the community’s diverse efforts to respond to her father’s death and Jones’ as well.
“I just want to say that thank you for everyone who was able to gather the strength to go and scream for justice and share mental health resources for my father and Mr. Steve’s family, when we didn’t have the strength to do it,” she said.
What’s next
Beyond providing spaces so people can connect and accompany one another, Johnson aims to keep organizing with the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition, proposing concrete solutions around police accountability, traffic, violence prevention and violence interruption.
Hartford Communities That Care in Coalition, along with the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition and Transforming Communities Initiative Health Hub will host a free six-week training series every Thursday from March 19 to April 23 called “Neighborhood Care Response and Community Support Training.”
The training aims to equip residents with practical skills to respond to trauma, support families and strengthen neighborhood safety in Hartford.
It will cover topics around understanding trauma healing and recovering strategies, community dialogues about public safety collaboration, as well as understanding medical providers’ role, and connecting residents to trusted local care and providers.
“So the goal is to get ahead of it, to prevent it, that’s No. 1. But No. 2, when it does happen, you have more people that you can call on locally and across the city to be able to support neighbors who are impacted by incidents such as folks having mental health episodes or being impacted or victimized, not just law enforcement incidents, but through a means of violent encounters,” Woods said.
Johnson will also keep hosting the biweekly Thursday noon meetings of North Hartford Public Safety Coalition in Vine Street and via Zoom.
“This is a time for more moral clarity, and that moral clarity belongs in civic life,” Johnson said.
Mariana Navarrete Villegas is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2026 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).