Two handmade signs, only one still legible, commemorate the Grand Avenue block where Malik Jones died. Norm Clement joined a dozen public testifiers early in September to call for an official corner sign honoring Malik. The words ​“Justice For Malik” have nearly faded from one hand-painted wooden board nailed to a Grand Avenue post. A more durable sign bearing Malik Jones’s name may soon rise alongside it — inscribing the memory of a bright, adventurous 21-year-old whom an East Haven cop shot to death in 1997.A group of local activists are pushing for the Board of Alders to formally designate the intersection of Grand Avenue and Murphy Drive ​“Malik Jones Corner.” The aldermanic City Services and Environmental Policy (CSEP) Committee unanimously voted to advance the proposal earlier this month, sending it to the full Board of Alders for a final vote in October.The corner naming would mark the place where a police officer shot and killed Malik. It would also mark the spot where activists from throughout the city and beyond have gathered annually, for decades, to remember his life and call for an end to police violence.It was at the most recent of those gatherings that one attendee, Norman Clement, came up with the idea for a permanent street sign commemorating Malik. Clement explained to the alder committee that he had spotted a ​“For Sale” sign nearby. ​“If someone buys this and puts up a CVS,” he recalled thinking, ​“no one will know the history of what happened there.”Malik was 21 years old when police tried to pull him over in the town of East Haven, and he fled. East Haven officers chased him back to that corner, boxed him in, jumped on his car, and then shot him at close range. Malik, who was Black, was unarmed. The shooter, Robert Flodquist, said he started shooting because Malik had allegedly given him a ​“Go To Hell” look. Flodquist also justified the killing by saying that Malik’s car had been slowly rolling backwards, which he claimed posed a life-threatening danger. He was never charged with a crime — instead, he was promoted to become the department’s spokesperson — and a jury verdict holding the town of East Haven liable for Malik’s death was eventually overturned.The shooting ignited decades of activism against police racism and brutality. Jones’s mother, Emma Jones, spurred a long-term movement for state reforms as well as a local Civilian Review Board in New Haven, a committee charged with hearing public complaints about police actions, which the city revived in 2018. She traveled the country to hear the stories of other parents grieving children killed by police. She led marches here in New Haven — which Wooster Square/Mill River Alder Ellen Cupo, whose ward includes the corner in question and who sponsored the corner naming legislation, attended as a child.The corner naming would be ​“the least we could do to honor Malik,” Cupo said in testimony to CSEP earlier this month.Her support was later echoed in the words of the committee alders.“Naming this corner will be a remembrance to all of us that we need to stand up and fight for what’s right,” said Hill Alder Kampton Singh.Jazmarie Melendez, a Bridgeport City Council member who lost her teenage brother Jayson Negron to police brutality, said in emotional testimony that an official corner named after Malik would be a meaningful sign of support to families like hers. Someone who hasn’t had a loved one killed by police ​“might think it’s small, but it’s not,” she said.Both of Malik’s parents, Emma and Jimmie Jones, echoed the sentiment that the corner name would make a powerful statement.Mr. Jones said he hopes the sign will serve as a ​“reminder” of the dual problems of being ​“overpoliced” amidst ​“the proliferation of guns” and gun violence.“Malik certainly wasn’t the first person that was brutally murdered by a police officer in this country, and he certainly has not been the last,” said Ms. Jones in an interview. ​“It’s so critically important — not only for my family, but I think the broader community — that his memory is etched someplace in history and that it would never be forgotten.”"He Was A Kid Trying To Grow Up In New Haven"Emma Jones, left, at a protest beside a poster of her son. The alder committee’s unanimous vote supporting a corner named after Malik, at Cupo’s urging, marks a shift in public dialogue about the killing over the last decade. In her efforts to seek accountability, Ms. Jones was often met with racist vitriol, Clement recalled. “The absurdity with which people talked about her son … people were throwing things at her,” said Clement. Many critics of Ms. Jones’s advocacy harped on Malik’s criminal history. One lawyer representing East Haven tried to argue in court that Malik’s life was worth less because of his past drug-related arrests.“He was a kid trying to grow up in New Haven,” said Mr. Jones. ​“He had his growing pains and he was 21 years old. He was trying to get himself together, like many kids do. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to live through that because of a traffic stop.”Both of Malik’s parents remember him as a kid who loved to make others laugh. “He was hilarious,” recalled Ms. Jones. ​“He could make fun of the worst situation and have you in stitches.”“He was always a jokester,” Mr. Jones echoed. ​“He liked playing jokes and laughing with people and was always trying to encourage people.” As a kid, Malik would dance with joy whenever he found out his mom was making chicken cutlets — his favorite of her meals, along with lasagna. In school, he was the kind of student who could skate by on smarts alone — ​“one of those kids that does not study like he should, and then comes in the classroom and aces every exam,” Ms. Jones said. He brought a lawyerly sensibility to arguments with his parents. She recalled that once, when she admonished him not to speak to strangers, Malik replied wryly: ​“Once I meet them, they’re not a stranger, are they?”Starting from about the second grade, he channeled his focus into becoming a black belt in karate. ​“His first degree,” as Ms. Jones called it, came from karate school — a diploma that she’s kept on her wall all these years later. For fun, he’d rope his friends into push-up competitions on the back porch of the house.On weekends, Malik would wake up his mom for early morning chats by patting her face and saying, ​“Wake up, sleeping beauty!” What Ms. Jones said she brings up the most about her son was his generosity. ​“He would give you his lunch and not have any lunch,” she said. Ms. Jones said that soon after obtaining his driver’s license, while he was still a teenager, Malik decided to drive the family of a girl he loved all the way to Florida, helping them move down south. An eager adventurer, he was confident he could navigate the way with the help of signs and strangers, she recalled. He didn’t seem to believe it was possible to get lost.“I could tell you so many, many stories that would keep you here until midnight,” Ms. Jones said, ​“and I still wouldn’t tell you all of the stories.”Jazmarie Melendez on corner naming: If it's not your loved one, you “might think it’s small, but it’s not."