Some guy fired seven bullets right at a deli storefront on a busy street at 1:15 in the afternoon. Watch for yourself — and tell the cops if you know anything about what you see.
The gunman opened fire outside JP Deli at 90 Farren Ave. on Wednesday. He had apparently been inside the deli with five other young men when he got into argument with one of them. Then he went outside and started firing with a .22-caliber handgun. Some of the young men who had followed him out ran back inside.
The gunman didn’t end up hurting anyone. He did scare people.
The gunman fled. After a few moments, the other young men popped outside the store, determined the coast was clear, then hopped into a car and drove off in the same direction the shooter had run.
NHPD
On Friday the police released a video of the episode. Click on it above to watch. Police ask that anyone with information contact detectives at (203) 946‑6304. Police described the alleged shooter as a man in his 20s, about 5’10”, with curly hair and “wearing a dark green hooded sweat-shirt and denim blue jeans.” This photo shows him inside the store before the shooting.
Police released a second video Friday, from an unrelated incident: The hit-and-run Tuesday morning at Ferry and Pine streets in Fair Haven. A van driver struck an 8‑year-old girl, then fled the scene. (Read about that here.) The video is taken from inside a bus parked near the scene of the accident. You need to fast-forward to about 1 minute into the video to hear the driver speak with the girl moments before the collision. (The girl had not been on board the bus.) This one has no real visuals.
“The school bus driver is stopped curbside when the girl approaches and asks if the bus is for ‘Elm City,’” police spokesman Officer David Hartman reported in describing the conversation in the video. “The bus driver tells her it is not and tells her to be careful. You can hear the bus driver warn her as she walks away. The screaming heard on the tape is that of the bus driver as she witnesses the child being struck by the van.”
NHPD
Police obtained surveillance video of the van. They had a photo still enhanced, and released it (pictured) Friday. Unfortunately, the license plate is not visible. Hartman described the vehicle as a white Chevrolet Express Cargo (model year between 1996 and 2002) with a “grey front bumper,” “‘barn doors’ with windows on the passenger side,” and “reverse lamps … below the tail lights on the upper portion of the van.”
Police don’t have a description of the driver, who faces felony evading charges.
The girl has been released from the hospital, where she was treated for “severe facial injuries,” Hartman reported. “She will no doubt endure a long recovery.” He asked anyone with information about the driver or the van to contact detectives at the (203) 946‑6304 number.
NHPD
The police also released this generic photo of the van model.
This video should be used as a training film for police officers. No police for 6 minutes and 45 seconds, and then that first car drives by, continues away from the scene. At 6:45 this event was so over, going to look for the suspect is ludicrous. He runs, to go hide; he hides not to get caught; he hides the gun, so as not to lose it: in 6 minutes and 45 seconds, he is already in his home eating a sandwich, looking out his window, for when the police have left. And how this was handled through the 911 operators, would give more definition as to why arrival is delayed at the store. Thank God for the video, it tells so much more to the dynamics of the event and the store. Who the shooter is. Who his friend is that ran after him, then returned to the store, to convene a meeting inside, with all the interested associates that magically arrived after the shots were fired. Looks like one group of drug dealers trying to stop another group from selling on the corner, but were not prepared for a gunfight. The car they all rolled into, which had a man waiting for them, to drive them away, shows they were preparing to do something but, things did not go as planned. The car they left in, most likely had their weapons in it.