New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
OFFICIALS: CT SHOOTINGS FOLLOW U.S. TREND
6 dead after weekend gunfire, including murder-suicide, police say
A weekend of shootings in Connecticut’s major cities left at least six people dead and others wounded, mirroring an uptick in gun violence seen across the country in recent months.
In Norwalk, police reported two people died from gunshot wounds on Sunday after police in tactical gear shut down the neighborhood after reports of an “armed subject.” The incident was later determined to be a domestic murder-suicide, officials said.
In Bridgeport, two men were shot and killed early Sunday and gunfire was heard while kids were playing a youth baseball game on Saturday.
In New Haven, police said a Bridgeport woman died after she was dropped off at the hospital with gunshot wounds. In Middletown, a 25-year-old was killed and a 17-yearold high school student was wound
ed in a shooting on Sunday. And in Hartford, four people were wounded in three shootings Saturday and Sunday.
The spate of recent shootings comes as cities nationwide have been struggling with an uptick in violence during the pandemic.
“There’s almost no city that has escaped it,” said Mike Lawlor, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven.
Prior to the surge of incidents during the pandemic, violent crime had fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s, after peaking in the early 1990s, he said.
Lawlor attributed the recent violence to three main factors: The upheavals caused by the pandemic, a breakdown in “trust between police and the community” amid the Black Lives Matter movement, and the nation being “flooded” with guns.
“Nationwide, police had been doing a really good job at reducing shootings,” Lawlor said. But the tactics that worked often required a lot of in-person contact between people at risk of committing violence and those trying to prevent it.
For Connecticut cities, this trend has been a struggle to control.
“We’re seeing around the nation a significant increase in violence and New Haven is experiencing a similar trend,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said.
He also attributed the increase in violence to a pause in intervention programs during the pandemic, including home visits by parole and probation officers that would search for guns or other violations. But he also said some victims of violence were people who had been incarcerated within the past decade and were now getting out.
Each year about 900 Elm City residents are released from incarceration into the city, the mayor said. He said it is “staggering” the number of the city’s roughly 130,000 residents who have a history of incarceration. Traditionally, they were simply dropped off on the New Haven green. Now those who are released go to a social services agency where they’re offered support, he said.
“It is a tragedy for our community that we’re losing community members that in my view we should all be serving better,” Elicker said.
He said the city will take a “multifold” approach in response, including restarting violence intervention programs. New Haven is also working with federal law enforcement and police from surrounding communities on a shootings task force, since many of the incidents involve crime or people that cross town lines. He also pointed to an “increase in supports for folks who potentially could be involved in violence.”
Lawlor, who is on the New Haven police commission and was a prosecutor and legislator before serving as Gov. Dannel Malloy’s top criminal justice advisor, broke down the shootings influenced by the pandemic into two main categories. The first involves rival street gangs, and the second is related to domestic incidents with people who have access to guns.
“Now that life is starting to return to normal, you may see more of this drugrelated violence now that people are trying to reestablish turf,” he said. Domestic incidents could also be related to the stresses caused by the pandemic, he said.
Both are made worse by easy access to firearms, even if people have criminal convictions that would prohibit them from legally obtaining a gun, Lawlor said.
“I think the fact that the country’s flooded with guns is definitely a factor in shootings,” he added. “There are way more guns in circulation than there are responsible gun owners.”
Not all of the weekend’s shootings are believed to have been intentional. In Hartford, Police Chief Jason Thody said authorities believe at least three of the shootings were accidental, two of them self-inflicted.
One on Sunday involved a legal gun owner who was showing off the weapon that had recently been purchased. Police said a man was later admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg in that incident.
“We can't stress enough the need to be safe when handling a firearm,” Thody said in a statement. “This could have been much worse and the victim in this case was very lucky.”
However, in Norwalk, police shut down a section of Chatham Drive during an incident involving an “armed subject,” with officers in tactical gear evacuating homes in the area. Police used a loudspeaker to try to communicate with the person inside the home before finding two people dead.
On Monday, the state’s chief medical examiner said the woman was the victim of a homicide and her husband died by suicide — both from gunshots.
In Bridgeport, officers were called to 1023 Main St. just before 2 a.m. Sunday for reports of shots fired. There they found two men, Charles Dimples Barnes, 38, of Bloomfield, and Norman Charles Peter, 40, of Stamford, with gunshot wounds. Barnes was pronounced dead at the scene, while Peter died at the hospital.
During their investigation, police said the location was being used as an illegal nightclub.
Earlier in the weekend, police also received several reports of gunfire near Newfield Park where kids were playing a Little League baseball game.
Eli Silverman, professor emeritus at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, cautioned that each city will have its own unique reason that violent incidents occur. He advised against making broad assumptions about why shootings have spiked without focusing on data from each city.
As for violence prevention programs, “it works when it’s done right,” he said. In order for them to work, he said the programs need people who have the respect from those on the street, as well as buy-in from local police.