Police probe circumstances of city teen’s accidental death

BRIDGEPORT — Detectives are still trying to piece together the moments leading to what police have described as the accidental shooting that killed a 16year-old boy on Valley Avenue Monday. One key issue is how the gun came into the juvenile’s possession in the first place.

The boy, Nigel Powell, was shot by another minor who was “playing” with a handgun, according to police. Two other juveniles were also present.

Police have not said whether any adults were around.

“According to our (detective bureau) this is still an active case,” said Scott Appleby, director of Bridgeport’s Office of Emergency Management, when asked about the investigation Thursday.

A charge of criminally negligent storage of a firearm could be lodged in the case if whoever owned the gun didn’t secure it properly and knew or should have known a minor could access it.

“I’m sure law enforcement is looking into where was this gun stored, where it was supposed to be stored, who did it belong to?” said Frank Riccio, an attorney and past president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association who has defended clients accused of the crime. “These are the questions they’ve got to figure out.”

The statute was first passed in 1990, and strengthened in 2019 by Gov. Ned Lamont’s signing of the so-called “Ethan’s Law,” named after Ethan Song, a 15-year-old Guilford boy who died after acciden

“I’m sure law enforcement is looking into where was this gun stored, where it was supposed to be stored, who did it belong to? These are the questions they’ve got to figure out.”

Frank Riccio, an attorney and past president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association

tally shooting himself with a .357 magnum he was playing with at a neighbor’s house.

The law closed a loophole whereby criminal charges could only be filed if a gun was loaded when stored.

A prosecutor investigating the case wrote in a report that evidence indicated the gun Song used was unloaded at the time it was stored in a Tupperware container. But bullets for the gun were stored in a separate box in the same container.

Ethan’s Law made it somewhat easier for charges to be filed under the statute.

Convictions under the law are rare, according to data from the Judicial Branch.

Between 2011 and 2020, there were five convictions for criminally negligent storage of a firearm — a Class D felony punishable by up to five years behind bars.

There have been none since Ethan’s Law went into effect in October 2019, though data is only available through last year, and criminal cases often takes months or years to be resolved, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Ethan’s mother, Kristin Song, said Friday people who own guns should be held responsible if they don’t store them safely.

“Obviously we don’t want to put anyone in jail, but we do want to have enough teeth in the law, and we want prosecutors and police to follow through if they find out this was an unsecured gun.”

She said she hopes her family’s campaign for the law named after her son could have similar effects to earlier drives to cut down on drunk driving or encourage seat belt use.

“That is our goal,” Song said. “To have a cultural shift . ... What’s the use of having a law if no one’s actually going to follow through with it?”

The law is a relatively simple one to enforce, Riccio said.

“They have to prove that there is a person whose responsibility it was to store a firearm and that that person either didn’t store it or didn’t store it properly,” he said.

“If they can prove those two elements — who is the responsible party, and that person failed to responsibly store the firearm — that’s really all they need,” Riccio said. “There’s no intent built into it. It’s pretty simple: ‘You should have stored it properly and you didn’t.’”

Jeremy Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said the law could and should be stronger.

“Irresponsible gun ownership is contributing to these deaths,” he said. “These are preventable deaths.”

Right now the law concerns cases where minors, residents of a home prohibited from having guns or persons posing an imminent risk to themselves are others are present. It also does not apply “if the minor obtains the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry to any premises by any person.”

“What we would expand it to is require safe storage under any circumstance where someone has a firearm in their home, or their car, or their place of business,” Stein said. “That guns needs to be secured unless it’s on them or in use.”

Gun rights advocates decry such proposals as overreach, or say that they limit a lawful gun owner’s right to protect themselves.

Stein said quick access gun locks and safes nullify such concerns.

And in a country where gun violence is the leading cause of death in children and teens, the issue is a public health crisis regardless of whether shootings are intentional or not, he said.

“The importance of securing weapons also affects urban gun violence,” Stein said. “Every time there’s a shooting, whether it’s accidental or purposeful, and that gun is in the hands of a minor, you have to ask yourself: How did they get it?”

“At some point a lot of those guns were stolen,” Stein said. “And how were they stolen? They were stolen from places where the gun wasn’t secured.”