“Justice for Katherine” Protesters Interrupt Stewart at Christmas Tree Lighting

With signs harshly criticizing Mayor Erin Stewart (R), “Justice for Katherine” protestors interrupted Stewart at the city’s official Christmas tree lighting Tuesday evening.

The Justice for Katherine campaign has included a series of protests and advocacy since New Britain Police officer Connor Reinsch struck and killed Katherine Colon with the police car he was driving, as Colon was crossing West Main Street on September 21, 2023.

At the protest on Tuesday, demonstrators chanted “Justice for Katherine Colon”, while taking to the stage in front of and then next to the official Christmas tree, carrying signs, including one saying, “Erin Stewart has ignored Katherine Colon’s family from the moment her murder occurred. She does not care about New Britain residents.”

“Erin Stewart is complicit in the murder of Katherine Colon,” read another sign. “We demand accountability.”

One sign added, “All I want for Christmas is justice for Katherine Colon.”

There was a large protest last October of 2023 in downtown New Britain calling for justice for Colon, and another protest on September 21st of this year, held one year after Colon was killed.

Family of Colon and other protesters have been calling for the firing of Reinsch, and have noted that a motorist other than a police officer who struck and killed a pedestrian would likely be arrested and even jailed.

Another protest was held at the city Police Headquarters in March of this year in reaction to a February 24, 2024 report by State Attorney Maureen Platt clearing Reinsch of criminal liability.

Platt, in her report, had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge Reinsch with a crime in the case. Her report had noted that he was traveling at, perhaps, 60 miles per hour on West Main Street, while traveling to a police call without his emergency lights on. Reinsch was quoted in saying that he was traveling to, “intercept an active burglary suspect” and that his attention was on another pedestrian he thought may be in medical distress when he struck Colon.

Platt’s conclusions were largely based on a state investigation that had concluded that it was Colon’s actions that, “were the causative factors for the collision, placing herself in unnecessary danger,” because, it said, she did not use the crosswalk and crossed the street diagonally, wore dark clothing and that she was intoxicated.

Protesters have taken great issue these conclusions, calling the reasoning to be “victim blaming.”

Earlier this year, Justice for Katherine activists went to a City Council meeting to call for renewal of consideration of creating a community review board for the New Britain police that a previous Republican-controlled Council defeated in 2020.

In 2020, the-then Republican-majority Council voted down, on a Council committee, a Democratic proposal to create a strong community police review board.

That year, momentum grew for the creation of a community review board for the city’s Police as massive protests occurred nationwide, including in New Britain, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. City Republicans’ response was for a weaker civilian review board plan that was widely derided for being advisory-only, appointed entirely by the mayor and lacking authority to effectively investigate alleged police misconduct.

Council Democrats, led by Ald Francisco Santiago (D-5), proposed a stronger version of a community review board that would be empowered to initiate its own investigations, expressly give the board power to issue subpoenas for evidence and compel witnesses and expand the valid reasons why people could file complaints with the review board. While still leaving the board advisory, the Democratic proposal would have changed from the Republicans’ plan for it to be appointed all by the mayor, to one appointed by both Republicans and Democrats on the Council.

All of the Republicans on the City Council’s Consolidated Committee voted down the Democrats’ proposal in October of 2020.