‘Lack of cooperation’ slows homicide probe
Man, 27, fatally shot in Midtown; police say neighbors not talking
A “lack of cooperation” from people who live near the scene of a Thursday night homicide in Midtown is frustrating city police, a department official said Friday.
Detective Lt. Thierry Croizer said a 27-year-old man was killed near the intersection of Cedar and Prospect streets. The shooting was reported to police about 8:10 p.m., he said.
The victim was taken by ambulance to HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus, where he was pronounced dead.
Croizer did not identify the victim and reported no arrest in the case, but he said police do not believe there is a threat to the public because the shooting appears to have been the result of a dispute between two people.
Croizer said, though, that police have not determined a motive for the killing and do not know if it was gang-related.
“No one is talking to us,” he said. “Everyone is making statements or assumptions [on
social media], and nobody is cooperating. We’re hoping a witness will come forward or even call us anonymously.
“I don’t know if it’s fear or they want to handle the situation themselves, and we don’t want that to happen,” he added. “We want to bring the person to justice.”
Croizer would not say whether the gun used in the killing had been recovered.
About 9:15 a.m. Friday, several marked and unmarked state police vehicles pulled up to the shooting scene, and forensics investigators began scouring the area with metal detectors.
A state police supervisor at the scene had no comment.
Croizer said surveillance cameras at the intersection where the shooting happened have been inactive since the 1990s.
The killing was the first homicide in the city of Kingston since November 2017. Before that, the last killing in the city was in April 2014.
Thursday’s shooting death happened near the Cedar Street location where 21-year-old Charles “C.J.” King was gunned down in a gang hit in February 2010.
In that case, Trevor Mattis and Gary Griffin, members of a Bloods-related gang called Sex Money Murder, were convicted of firstdegree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Jarrin Rankin — who authorities said ordered the hit on King from inside the Ulster County Jail because King had given grand jury testimony against him — was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 12½ to 25 years in prison.
Thursday night’s shooting death was being investigated with help from the state police, Ulster County Sheriff’s Office, Ulster County District Attorney’s Office, town of Ulster Police Department and Saugerties Police Department, Kingston police said.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call city police at (845) 331-1671. Anonymous tips can be made at (845) 3319944 or through the Submit-A-Tip website at www.tipsubmit.com/webtipsstart.aspx.