Teen shot multiple times
Boy wounded as gunfire erupts at housing complex
A group of neighbors congregated Friday morning a few dozen yards away from police officers inspecting a shot-out SUV at an apartment complex on Stamford’s West Side, where a teen was gunned down hours earlier.
The residents of the Southwood Square Apartments knew little more than what they had heard: a series of gunshots shortly before midnight Thursday and that a teen boy was fighting for his life.
“It sounded like they unloaded a clip on him,” one woman said.
The woman, who declined to give her name, said she woke up late Thursday night to the sounds of repeated gunshots. She ran to her son’s bed and patted him down to make sure he was OK. He was unharmed.
A 17-year-old boy nearby was not, according to police. He was found outside a building across from a playground where the neighbors stood in shock Friday morning. He had two bullet wounds, one to his head and one to his buttocks.
Capt. Richard Conklin said police received calls reporting shots fired at the complex around 11:30 p.m. Thursday.
The teen was rushed to Stamford Hospital, where he remained in critical condition Friday afternoon. The Ford Explorer appeared to have been shot in the incident, but the young man was not inside it, Conklin said.
Conklin declined to say whether there were any suspects or if the shooting was connected to any past violence in the neighborhood, including the killing of another teen in late May.
“It’s premature to speculate,” he said. “It is an active investigation and we’re not going disclose that at this point.”
Forensic investigators and detectives worked through the night piecing together the shooting and interviewing witnesses, Conklin said.
Conklin urged anyone with information to call police.
Southwood Square, a 12-building complex owned by the city housing authority, has a history of violence.
It was built in the early 2000s to replace the old Southfield Village, a federal housing project, which was razed after decades of neglect permeated by shootings.
The village was torn down in 1993, soon after a 7-year-old girl was killed amid crossfire during an outdoor birthday party.
In recent years, the tree-lined streets and vinyl- and brick-sided homes that make up the complex have not been immune to the bloodshed that plagued the old village.
Last year, a man was wounded in a drive-by shooting. In 2010, two men were killed in a shootout. Still, the complex — and the city as a whole — had been quiet in terms of homicide.
Before the killing of 18-year-old Antonio Robinson on May 31, the city had not had a homicide in 18 months.
Three teens accused of Robinson’s murder were arraigned last week and remain in state custody, each held in lieu of $500,000.
The Rev. Robert Jackson, pastor at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Stamford, said there will be a Stop the Violence rally at Jackie Robinson Park at 3 p.m. Sunday in response to the recent shootings.
His message, he said, is that there are “alternative ways to deal with disagreements.
“Guns are not the way to go,” Jackson said.