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by Melissa Bailey | Aug 31, 2006 5:04 pm

(3) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: The Hill

Yet another memorial has popped up on a New Haven sidewalk: This time on Frank Street in the Hill, where an 18 year-old was shot in the head. The city is wrestling to get on top of four shootings, all within two hours of each other Wednesday night. Remarked Frank Street neighbor Louis Nieves (pictured): “All this killing and stuff, it could be stopped with the curfew.”

(Click here to read the police department’s press release on the shootings.)

Sand and candles mark the spot where Lawrence Mabery, 18, of Dixwell Avenue, lay the night before after being shot by “at least two bullets” in the head, according to Lt. Ray Hassett.

Ashley Taylor, 16, rolled up on her bicycle Thursday afternoon “to pay my respects” beside the memorial. “I’m just saying a prayer inside,” she said. She knew “little Larry” from a project named The Carter in the ‘Ville (Newhallville). He was “someone cool to be around,” “always on a bike or whatever, playing basketball.”

With so many teen deaths, she said this summer has been the worst she’s seen. “I just want to know when there’s going to be an end to this ‘cause I’m tired of this. Every day on the news, someone getting killed, murdered.”

Louis Nieves (pictured above), whom neighbors call “Don Louis,” hung out in big red slippers outside his house on Frank Street Thursday. He was asleep last night around 10 p.m., when Little Larry was gunned down outside 75 Frank St. Nieves rushed downstairs, but didn’t ask questions “because that’s none of my business.”

“Children out here is killing children,” he said Thursday. “This is getting ridiculous.” As a solution, he offered a youth curfew (which aldermen have recently proposed), . And more cops on the street: “My question to the mayor is, why don’t they walk the street like they used to? That way there’d be less crime.”

Two other apparently unrelated shootings happened Wednesday night.

At 10:01 p.m., officers heard a 16 year-old boy had showed up at St. Raphael’s Hospital with a gunshot wound to the rear. He told police he had been standing outside 43 Orchard St. when someone sprayed shots at him. Police chased a suspect down Asylum Street and arrested him.

At 11:47 p.m., police responded to the Cornell Scott Ridge apartment complex at 437 Eastern St., where two men had been shot: One in the forearm, the other in the hand. Subjects were uncooperative, and police had no further explanation for the shoot-out, according to Officer Joseph Avery.

Assistant Chief Stephanie Redding was back in New Haven after attending a national summit on youth violence, in Washington, D.C. She said that her counterparts from Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Springfield, Mass., were all reporting a spike in shootings and youth violence.

“You name the city, the chiefs and the mayors are describing the same situation,” Redding said. “They literally could be talking about incidents in New Haven.”

Comments

posted by: BJFair on September 2, 2006 11:14am

And the shootings and killings will continue so long as we focus on the kids, curfews, more aggressive police officers,gun buy back, snitching and all those other things that DO NOT STOP THE SALES OF GUNS TO OUR CHILDREN. THIS WOULD HAVE STOPPED A LONG TIME AGO IF THESE GUNS WERE FLOWING FREELY AMONG SUBURBAN CHILDREN!!!The trafficking of guns originates from surrounding towns and not from New Haven children. The individuals providing our children with guns are not being prosecuted and their kids are not dying so there is no GENUINE incentive to end this crisis. Each murder is in essence “killing at least two birds with one stone” One is killed and the other(s)is locked up.Two important things must happen to stop the bloodshed. The culture of violence MUST be addressed within our homes and communities and the prosecution of the gun dealers MUST happen otherwise we are spinning our wheels just as we are in the so called “drug war”. Committed to shaping a better world. BFair

posted by: Michael Schwab on September 5, 2006 12:04am

I believe that our youth initially became armed because drug dealers could not use banks and had to just grip their cash. If you legalize pot you suck most of the money, and most of the high stakes, out of that distribution market. Also, everyone who purchases it will benefit tremendously from the lower price, so the generalized hardship and stress that feeds violence could really decrease. Third, taking marijuana out of the jurisdiction of cops and courts would enable millions to have a real chance of living within the law; the availability of police protection might reduce their willingness to carry guns themselves. And it would be nice to see the government admit that it was wrong and show us that just maybe they do care about the quality of our lives.

On top of it all, if pot was a lot easier to get than crack, people might be able to get along just a bit better.

posted by: Lou West on September 5, 2006 9:09pm

Curview is necessary, but not enforced by the police. The parents need to institute and enforce curview for their children. As a child, my curview was the street lights, I had to be home or in somebody’s (adult) house when the street lights came on. When I spent the night with one of my buddies, his parents would call my parents to let them know that I was safe in their home. END OF STORY!! More police on the street is not the answer, parents need to kick butt.

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