“Emma Jones Justice For Malik Corner” OK’d

The corner where East Haven police officers chased, shot, and killed 21-year-old Malik Jones in 1995 will not be called ​“Malik Jones Corner” after all.

Instead, the Board of Alders decided to name that intersection after Jones’s mother, Emma, and the campaign for police accountability she has carried forth after his death.

That outcome of Monday evening’s Board of Alders meeting surprised a group of activists who had sought to directly commemorate Malik at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Murphy Drive. The group, convened by Norman Clement, had gathered the required 250 signatures in support of the name ​“Malik Jones Corner” and received a favorable recommendation from the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee in September.

But on Monday, the full Board of Alders unanimously voted to amend the proposed corner name to ​“Emma Jones Justice For Malik Corner,” an edit proposed by Fair Haven Alder Frank Redente.

Redente explained to his colleagues that while ​“if it were just up to me, I personally would have let the matter here pass” without an amendment, ​“I received numerous calls from my community opposing the corner naming without including Emma.”

Redente, whose ward extends to about six blocks away from the corner in question, elaborated after the meeting that he heard passionate feedback from constituents about the corner-naming proposal in recent weeks.

Some opponents of the proposed corner name took issue with Malik’s criminal record. Redente recalled one neighbor calling the 21-year-old ​“an evil person” in one conversation. Redente vehemently rejected that accusation, recalling that he grew up alongside the Jones family in Farnam Courts, playing basketball with Malik and his brothers.

According to Redente, the input that primarily spurred his amendment Monday night was ​“more that Emma was being left out.” Emma Jones’s activism around the memory of her son led to the creation of New Haven’s Civilian Review Board to review complaints of police misconduct, a board on which Redente now serves.

On a personal level, Redente recalled turning to Emma Jones for help during some of the hardest moments of his life. He remembers being shaken by Malik’s shooting death.

According to Redente, Emma Jones had given the alders permission to make this name change prior to the meeting.

(Later Monday night, in an interview with the Independent, Jones said that she didn’t remember speaking to Redente about the name change, but that it’s possible that she had forgotten. ​“He’s a really good guy. I know he is. I know that he loves me tremendously and I know that he wouldn’t do anything that he thought would be against my best interests, I know that about him,” she said.)

As he introduced the amendment during Monday’s meeting at City Hall, Redente explained that the name ​“Emma Jones Justice For Malik Corner” would ​“shift away from the personal connection and toward justice.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa and Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez expressed support for this amended corner name.

“Emma put a stop to her personal life for her and other families,” said Rodriguez. ​“We are a better city thanks to Emma Jones.”

Festa explained that the amended name ​“shifted the thought to what Emma Jones really stood for,” and would ​“not only recognize her son, but her as well.”

All of the alders present voted in favor of this name change.

The activists who had first submitted the corner name shuffled out of the room after the vote. Clement immediately called Jones to update her.

“We were given no heads up” about the changes to the corner name, said activist Sandra Sandria.

Sandria said that any arguments against Malik’s character don’t matter, as ​“Malik did not deserve to die that way.”

Emma Jones, meanwhile, expressed gratitude for her own name’s presence on the corner sign alongside the words ​“Justice For Malik.”

“I think it’s important to have Malik’s name there because of what happened to him, and I never want people to forget,” Jones said. She praised how the new version puts her own name alongside Malik’s and ​“gives it a greater meaning.”

“It’s a great honor,” she said. ​“I didn’t expect to be honored. But I’m delighted that people thought enough of me to remember all of the work that I did do.”

She hopes it will speak to the terror that so many mothers of Black sons have felt and still feel — ​“your son goes out to the store to get a loaf of bread, and you’re terrified because you don’t know whether he’s coming back.”

“I will never forget what that officer did to my son,” she said. Now, neither will the street.