Teen fired at moving car, city police say

Arrest is first announced in several gunshot cases

KINGSTON, N.Y. » A teenager who allegedly possessed a loaded handgun when he was stopped by police late Friday has been charged with firing shots at a moving car in Midtown on Oct. 1, the Kingston Police Department said Saturday.

This marks the first arrest reported by police in connection with a rash of incidents this year in Kingston in which shots were fired but no one was wounded.

Jaylen M. Coliukos, 19, of Kingston, was arrested late Friday during a traffic stop on East Chester Street, and he initially was charged with felony criminal possession of a weapon and with possession of marijuana, police said. Later, though, he was charged with the felony of reckless endangerment in connection with the Oct. 1 gunfire incident, in which no one was struck.

“As the investigation unfolded, it became apparent that Coliukos was responsible for shooting at a moving and occupied vehicle during an altercation that occurred near the intersection of Downs Street and Wiltwyck Avenue in the City of Kingston on October 1st, 2020,” the police department posted on its Facebook page.

After his arraignment in City

Court on Saturday, Coliukos was sent to the Ulster County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Kingston police said the

Friday night arrest was made by the “Blue and Grey Detail,” a joint patrolling effort with the state police and the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office that was begun over the summer as cases of shots being fired in the city increased.

The Oct. 1 gunfire incident, another the same day

and one the day before were the first reported cases of shots being fired in the city after a lull of nearly two months, coinciding with the stepped-up patrols. No one was struck in any of those three incidents.

Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti said in late

September that he wanted to continue the joint policing initiative beyond the initial 10-week evaluation period, and he said in early October that the additional police presence led to “some good leads” and “a very fast response” to incidents.

The increased patrols fol

lowed four fatal shootings in the city between October 2019 and July 2020, only one of which has resulted in an arrest; as well as numerous incidents of shots being fired and no one being struck. In early July, though, two teens suffered leg wounds in a shooting at the Birchwood Village apartment complex; and this past Wednesday, a Kingston man was shot in the back and left leg while walking on Elmendorf Street in Midtown.

Two men have been charged in connection with the most recent shooting.