Melissa Bailey Photo
Officer Jillian Knox was making her rounds in the Hill when a “hysterical” woman flagged her down. The woman, who had just witnessed a murder, pointed out a fleeing triggerman in a black SUV.
The woman wasn’t involved in the murder — she had just driven by the scene and decided to follow the person who she thought had done the shooting. Her tip, combined with a patrol cop’s level-headed thinking, helped police crack the city’s 23rd homicide case of the year on Wednesday before the end of the night.
Officer Knox and top police brass gave that account at a press conference Thursday at police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. Cops shared the details of the overnight arrest in the killing of 28-year-old Lee Anthony Mitchell. Mitchell, who was killed at 6 p.m. Wednesday in what police are calling a “domestic dispute,” became the seventh person killed in the Hill neighborhood this year.
Knox, a nearly 10-year veteran of the city police force, has spent the last six years patrolling the Hill neighborhood. She began her shift Wednesday as she did any other, with “a routine check of my beat.” She said she was driving on Lamberton Street around 6 p.m. when a woman approached her marked patrol car.
The woman, whom Knox didn’t know, pointed to a black Hyundai SUV that she said contained the man who had just shot someone. She asked the cop to “get him.”
Knox called in the shooting before cops had even found the crime scene. She followed the SUV and called in for backup.
Simultaneously, cops received a report of a person shot in the area of 20 Hurlburt St., just a few blocks from where the woman had flagged Knox down. Mitchell had been shot three or for times in the back, according to Assistant Police Chief John Velleca.
Cops found the site of a crime on Hurlburt Street, where about 60 angry people had gathered into a “mob,” Velleca said. Cops found “numerous” shotgun shell casings. The victim appeared to be dead on the scene.
Meanwhile, Knox kept a close eye on the SUV. She called in its location as it turned onto the Ella Grasso Boulevard, then onto Legion Avenue.
“I kept my eyes on the vehicle and I never took my eyes off of it,” Knox said. “My instincts kicked right on in. I had to try to get this guy.”
Knox followed the SUV until it crashed on Orchard Street near Sylvan Avenue a few minutes later. The operator, who’s 20, bailed out and fled on foot. By that time, fellow cops were nearby to chase him down.
Officers Nikki Curry and James Murcko chased the suspect through backyards. Lt. Kenneth Blanchard ran parallel to the officers as they called in the suspect’s location. When the suspect hopped a fence into a yard at 63 Sylvan Ave., Blanchard was there waiting, according to Velleca.
Blanchard tackled the suspect and arrested him. Capt. Leo Bombalicki, who was involved in another foot-and-car chase just hours earlier, said he and Officer Richard Burgos also joined in apprehending the suspect.
Click here to read about the car-and-foot chase hours earlier.
Cops later recovered a shotgun in the suspect’s SUV. Detectives interviewed “numerous witnesses” who gave “detailed information about the incident and the perpetrator,” Velleca said.
Detectives interrogated the suspect, who eventually confessed to the crime, Velleca said. He was charged with murder and is being held on a $1.5 million bond.
Velleca said the incident “does not appear to be random,” but rather “the result of a domestic dispute.”
NHPD
The victim (pictured in a police mugshot) has a criminal history. He was convicted in 2010 of violating a protective order and again in 2011 for violating a criminal restraining order.
Velleca declined to elaborate on whether those restraining orders may be related to the “domestic dispute.”
Top police brass commended cops for solving the case quickly, and community members for giving information.
Velleca credited Knox for her solid patrol work: “She got the information out very quickly. She maintained a level head.”
The woman who flagged down Knox “could have sat wherever she was and not said a word,” said Assistant Chief Petisia Adger.
Knox, a former state corrections officer, grew up in New Haven. She said she became a cop to protect the city in which she was raised.
Knox said she was inspired by the woman who flagged her down. “I just wanted to catch this guy,” she explained. “The complainant was adamant about ‘get him,’ so I knew I had to do it.”
She said she hopes the woman serves as an inspiration to others, too.
“We need more of this to happen,” Knox said. “We need you guys in the community to step up and help us do our jobs.”
Leo,
You and the others put in an honest hard days work.....go home and enjoy the evening with your wife.
Elaine