Mayor: Police patrols increased after two shot in Ansonia
ANSONIA — The area around Fifth and North Main streets was eerily quiet late Wednesday afternoon.
No basketballs were being dribbled in Gatison Park. No children were bicycling on the mostly residential streets made up of multifamily homes and two churches. No teens were gathered around a front porch stoop.
It was quite a contrast to the sirens and flashing red lights of police cars and ambulances early Tuesday night.
Multiple shots rang out around 7:30 p.m. striking two men, one 19 and the other 63. Both are hospitalized.
Mayor David Cassetti said he was told both men will survive.
Lt. Patrick Lynch said the investigation is continuing and police are asking anyone with information on the shooting to contact police.
“You can’t blame what happened on the cops,” said a 66-year-old longtime resident sitting with his cell phone in front of the nearby Domino’s restaurant. “Sometimes things happen that you have no control over.”
Still, he said he was not overly concerned.
“It’s not a daily occurrence like you have in Bridgeport or New Haven,” said the man, who asked not to be identified.
A short distance away, a grandmother walking with her two granddaughters had a different point of view.
“Of course I’m concerned,” said the woman who would only give her name as Kay. “My daughter just moved here eight months ago. When I heard about this I came down.” Two police cars drove. “The cops are doing their job,” Kay said
The area has been known for drug arrests and shootings in the past. Last September a 29-year-old Bridgeport man was shot twice on Fourth Street. A July 4, 2017 shooting on Fourth Street sent a man to the hospital with a gunshot wound in his abdomen. On Wednesday police charged Edward Brown, 54 of Naugatuck with the assault and robbery of a 45-year-old man in Gatison Park on May 9, 2015.
“I’m always concerned when there is a shooting,” said Cassetti, whose city experienced no shootings in 2018. “But too often they involve people coming from outside the city.”
The mayor said he has asked police to step up patrols in that area.
“We had an officer in the vicinity last night when the shooting occurred,” he said.