Danbury mall shooting linked to carnival fight
New court records reveal feuding groups of teens have history
A fight at a Danbury carnival at the start of the summer may have been the impetus for the shooting that injured a teen girl and prompted an active shooter scare earlier this month at the Danbury Fair Mall, new court records reveal.
The shooting the night of Aug. 11 happened during a pair of confrontations between teens from one area of town colloquially known as “Ridge Kids” and another group of teens that included 18-year-old Derek Sotelo, who was attacked by several Ridge Kids in early June at the carnival outside the mall, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Sotelo, armed with a hammer, and his 15-year-old girlfriend were among the second group of teens who confronted the Ridge Kids just outside the Macy’s inside the mall when a 14-year-old boy with the Ridge Kids opened fire, hitting the 15-year-old girl in the throat, records show.
The 14-year-old turned himself in to police with his parents a week after the shooting and was charged with a half-dozen offenses, including first-degree assault, but his name and case records are sealed by the juvenile court.
Sotelo was arrested Wednesday and also charged with a half-dozen offenses for his role in the confrontation, including attempted second-degree assault and inciting a riot.
Because he is 18 years old, Sotelo was charged as an adult and his case is public, offering the first
insights into the shooting that prompted an enormous police response — drawing officers to the mall from several surrounding towns — as hundreds fled the huge building and police tried to determine whether there was an active shooter threat inside.
The incident began just before 7 p.m. Aug. 11 when Sotelo, his girlfriend and several other teens saw several Ridge Kids at the mall and went back outside to the parking lot, where they called a few more teen friends to come meet them. Sotelo then apparently grabbed a hammer from one of their vehicles, according to several of the teens’ accounts to investigators.
Several of the teens indicated to detectives that they knew something was going on with the Ridge Kids at the mall, and more than one of them overheard Sotelo make reference to being “jumped” by Ridge Kids earlier in the summer at the carnival outside the mall, records show. Detectives themselves knew Sotelo had been attacked and suffered minor injuries during the June 5 carnival but noted he was uncooperative at the time and told police not to investigate further, according to the affidavit.
One of the girls who was with Sotelo and his girlfriend at the time told police she wasn’t worried about the situation, despite Sotelo’s past with the group, “because she knew (the shooter) and the others in the group were just kids,” according to the affidavit.
Sotelo’s group confronted the Ridge Kids group at an indoor entrance to the Macy’s near several couches and chairs inside the mall where some kind of argument broke out, security camera footage of the incident showed. Another 20 innocent bystanders, including children, were nearby as the argument unraveled.
“There was no audio for this footage, however, from the actions of the people involved, it was clear things were getting heated,” according to the affidavit.
The 14-year-old boy, whom police recognized watching the footage, stood up during the argument and fired at least one shot, the video showed. Sotelo lunged toward the shooter with the hammer in his right hand and ended up running into a nearby spa before everyone from both groups ran from the scene in opposite directions, records show.
None of the teens initially knew their 15-year-old friend had been injured until they exited the mall and realized she was bleeding, they said. She was rushed to the Danbury Hospital emergency room, where doctors concluded she had been shot in the left side of her throat and fractured a vertebrae and ordered her transferred to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, records show.
Neither the victim nor two of her friends would cooperate with police in the immediate aftermath of the incident — the victim would not even provide her own name until she was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital — and her friends refused to share anything more than a vague outline of the confrontation with police, the warrant affidavit details.
It was only after police cleared the building of any active shooter threat after hours of lockdown that they were able to review security camera footage that established how the groups had come together, records show. Over the weeks since the incident, some of the teens from both groups revealed more details about their argument and identified Sotelo.
Investigators obtained an arrest warrant for the 14-year-old accused shooter, and he turned himself into police on Aug. 16 with his parents and attorney at his side, police have said. The handgun used in the shooting also was recovered, they said.
Another arrest warrant was issued for Sotelo this week and he was arrested Wednesday at a home in Danbury, police said. He was ordered held on $150,000 bond and court records show there are another half-dozen pending criminal cases against Sotelo, including multiple violations of a protective order.