New Haven Independent

At around 6 p.m. on Thursday, an unidentified man was found dead in a first-floor apartment of 353 Poplar St., in Fair Haven. He had been shot in the chest, police said.

As police worked to track down suspects Friday morning, Harris and neighbors were still reeling from the incident.

“I am shocked,” said a woman named Audrey, who lives with Harris in the house next door to 353 Poplar (pictured). Audrey declined to give her last name.

“Three years ago, I would have expected it,” she said, walking out of her house on the way to the store. “But the neighborhood has gotten quieter.”

“I’m considering moving, to be honest with you,” Audrey continued. “That’s too close.”

Like all the neighbors interviewed for this story, Audrey said she had not heard any gunshots: “I didn’t even hear anything. Not a thing.”

Monique Harris (at left in photo at top of story) stood in the front hallway of her house, smoking a cigarette.

“He’s staying right here in the house,” she said, putting her hand on her 10-year-old son Marlon Harris, standing beside her. “I don’t want him in the front.”

Asked how he felt about having to stay inside, Marlon replied “Kinda bad, because usually I be coming out playing with my friends.”

Harris said that the neighborhood was getting better, “since they got rid of the bad element last year.” She pointed across the street to a boarded-up house that had reportedly been occupied by drug dealers.

Harris said didn’t know the occupants on the first floor of 353 Poplar but she did know the family that lived upstairs.

Charles Lowery (pictured) lives with his family on the second and third floors of 353 Poplar, right above where the body was found. He was on his way out to get some shrimp Friday morning. To leave his house he had to pass under the crime scene tape and check in with the officer keeping an eye on the house.

Lowery said that he didn’t know his downstairs neighbor either.

“It’s crazy,” said Lowery. “I didn’t think it would happen over here.”

Lowery said he was home all day on Thursday and didn’t hear anything. He only realized something was happening when he heard a police radio. He looked out his window to find a policeman looking around his backyard.

Lowery said not much was going on in that downstairs apartment Thursday: “I didn’t see anybody go in or out.”

An across-the-street neighbor, however, reported seeing much more activity at that house.

“That’s a drug house, people in and out of there all the time,” said Jennifer Williams (pictured), gesturing at 353 Poplar. Williams was sitting on her front porch with her roommate Melissa Jones. Williams said that she had seen somebody go in the house on Thursday. “A white guy. Tan shorts, tan hat,” she said. “They selling drugs out of that house.”

“People was in there all morning,” Jones said.

Jones said she didn’t hear any gunshots: “They must’ve had a silencer gun or put a pillow in front,” she speculated.

Williams and Jones weren’t surprised by the crime. “The police are always over here,” said Jones. “It’s drug-infested and prostitute-infested.”

Most neighbors, like Harris, said the neighborhood has been getting safer over the past three years. Some had lost hope, however.

“It’s getting worse,” said Antonio Aguilar, who lives two doors down from the crime scene. Aguilar’s house, like most of the houses on Poplar Street, featured a “No Trespassing” sign.

“It’s the people,” he said. “The owners rent the houses to whoever, they don’t check their records.”

“Look at this,” Aguilar continued, pointing at the house across the street (pictured), the one that Monique Harris called the ‘bad element.’ “This house was rented to people selling drugs.”

Aguilar has been living on Poplar Street for five years. For the past two years, he’s been trying to move out.