New Haven school official’s home riddled by bullets

NEW HAVEN — Witnesses said bullets riddled the home of a New Haven school administrator Friday evening.

A neighbor heard as many as six shots, and Assistant Superintendent Paul Whyte said bullets entered an office, a bedroom and the living room of his Beaver Hills home.

“Everyone’s physically OK,” Whyte said. “We’re just very shaken.”

Whyte, his wife and his mother-in-law were home at the time of the shooting, around 7:30 p.m. Friday, but there were no injuries reported.

“Everything happened — just so fast,” he said.

“It was, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop.’ It wasn’t like a rash of shots,” said New Haven Board of Education member Tamiko JacksonMcArthur, who said she lives diagonally across from Whyte’s home. “It was single shots, like five or six.”

When asked if he thought he was being targeted specifically, Whyte said he didn’t think so.

“I can’t imagine that,” he said. “I’m just relying on New Haven police and they’re doing a fantastic job. They’ve been investigating.”

In a lengthy statement Saturday afternoon, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said he visited Whyte and his family Friday after he heard about the shooting.

“I was relieved in this moment, traumatic as it was, to hear that Dr. Whyte and his family were physically unharmed by the gunfire,” the mayor said. “This moment is also a reminder that, with crime on the rise nationally and in our city, bullets have no name. We are very lucky in this instance that no one was hurt.”

Elicker said the incident highlights the work the city is doing to address gun violence both long term and in the near term.

“To those who continue to wreak havoc in our communities, divide us further with gun violence, and have no respect for the safety of our neighbors: we are putting you on notice. Your violent actions will have real consequences,” he said

Jackson-McArthur said she hears gunshots in her neighborhood “almost every day.”

“Hearing gunshots in Beaver Hills is nothing new,” she said. “There’s so much shooting in this city right now it’s scary to go out.”

New Haven Police confirmed they are investigating an incident of gunfire striking a house in the Beaver Hills neighborhood but could provide no other details.

Elicker said city police are working “to get to the bottom” of the shooting, and urged anyone with information to reach out to the authorities.

“I understand that many who are affiliated with group-involved violence and street groups often don’t know how to shake their allegiance to this group identity. We are ready to support you if you want to leave that life behind,” he said.