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Victims’ Friends: “How Did This Happen?”
by Melissa Bailey | Aug 31, 2007 5:18 pm
(6) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Legal Writes
Katrina Jenkins (pictured) sat in a tense waiting room Friday as her best friend — one of the victims in a double shooting at the Vandome Night Club Thursday — lay clinging to life in a hospital bed. With six cops working at the club at the time, she and clubgoers wondered how the shooters got away.
Jenkins and her best friend Johntae Beamon joined a group of friends at a “shorts and miniskirt party” at the hopping Vandome club on Fair Haven’s Hamilton Street Thursday. They partied until after last call, when clubgoers pour out onto Hamilton Street.
About 500 people milled around outside the club at closing time, according to police.
“It was really, really crowded,” said Jenkins, speaking in soft tones Friday, her arms folded tight, in a second-story waiting room of the Hospital of St. Raphael. Every Thursday, she noted, there’s a busy after-party of people just hanging out after the club closes — people even drive over just to join the crowd hanging outside.
Jenkins was on her way out of the club at about 1 a.m. when she heard gunfire. Beamon had been shot in the chest. “I just saw him lying on the ground,” she said. “It was like a knife through my heart.”
A second man, Antoine Brown, 32, was shot in the hip around the same time, according to police. Both remained in stable condition Friday.
Jenkins walked into her best friend’s hospital room midday for a visit. With a breathing tube through his mouth, he could only shake his head “yes” or “no.”
“I tried to calm him down,” said Jenkins. “He kept trying to get out the bed.”
His sister, Jacqueline Beamon, waited with him through the night. “I told him he’s gonna be all right,” she said. His older sister by 17 years, she raised Johntae as though he was her own son. He’s now 22, the father of a 5-year-old girl. He spends his days soldering and assembling parts at an electronics store — a skill he learned at the Eli Whitney Technical High School.
(He’s not related to Ricardo Beamon, who was shot to death on Chapel Street this summer, his sister said.)
How Did They Get Away?
Friends who’d been at the scene at Vandome said there was “no fight, nothing” before the bullets flew. Police had gotten reports of a fight in the parking lot earlier in the evening, but police “do not believe there was a connection” to the shooting, said mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga.
Friends who sat quietly in the Intensive Care Unit waiting room Friday wondered how the shooting happened with so many police around.
“The cops were all around,” said a young man in a whiteT -shirt at the hospital waiting room. The man, who declined to give his name, was outside the club when it happened. “There was a paddy-wagon there as soon as the club let out. They didn’t do nothing” to stop the shooters from getting away.
“Where were they?” he asked, lifting his head from his hands.
Mayorga said there were six extra-duty officers working at the club at the time of the incident. (Vandome management could not be reached for comment at presstime.) Four more officers responded to the call.
Was it fair to question how the cops failed to track down a suspect in the shooting?
No, said Mayorga. “There were 500 people out there and it happened amongst the crowd. It would’ve been difficult to see” who fired the shots. No guns were found at the scene, according to Mayorga. She said the investigation has suffered from lack of cooperation from witnesses. “We don’t know if someone drove by and shot them, or if they shot each other. We just don’t know.”
Post a Comment
Comments
posted by: kris on August 31, 2007 6:31pm
The cops are always made out to be the bad guy.If they chased the shooters on a high speed chase you would have Malik Jones’s mother and company bashing the cops for excessive force.You can never make people happy in new haven.Lets face it if you want to be safe then stay out of clubs in drug ridden neighborhoods.That club is trouble and everybody knows it.Shutting it down would be the best thing but than you would have people saying there is nothing for young adults to do in new haven and thats why there is so much crime.Everything in new haven is a loose loose situation.People cant afford to pay bills but they could afford to go clubbing…must be nice
posted by: DAFeder on August 31, 2007 7:34pm
You know what would really help here? Some snitching. Well, it would help 499 out of the 500 outside the club. Time to step up, party people.
David
posted by: westvillecharlie on September 1, 2007 11:40am
one of the hip hop world’s new credo suggests that people who cooperate with the police are rats, and sniches. there were probably 50 witnesses to the shootings. if just one of those witnesses were to cooperate, there’s a good chance the shooters would be in custody right now. the police, though very much imperfect, can only do so much without the help of the public or the victims.
by the way, having lived on green street 100 yards upriver from vandome for three years, i can tell you the place is magnet for trouble, and is rivaled only by the taurus for trouble. it should have been shut down years ago, and at the very least there should have been a requirement to have a minumum of five armed n.h.p.d. at the club.
one question for the public. why don’t you see the same kind of violence at places like archie moore’s, richter’s, christopher martin’s, delaney’s - even toad’s place - where people are young and drunk quite often - like you do at a vandome, taurus or jacks or better? seriously, why is that?
posted by: THREEFIFTHS on September 2, 2007 5:16pm
Hey Icewein You State That Crime Is Out Of Control In Harlem. What Is The Count Now In New Haven. I Still Can Sell You One Of My Brownstone
House In Harlem And I Bet You You Will Be Safe In Harlem Than In New Haven!!!
posted by: norton street on September 2, 2007 8:55pm
hip hop culture has nothing to do with what happened. hip hop is made of four things, b-boying, DJing, graffiti and emceeing. that is it. and yeah, why do people even go to “drug ridden” neighborhoods, in fact why do people even live there. only the drug dealers and prostitutes should be there, and everyone else should go to your neighborhood, Kris. Or maybe instead of creating an empty warehouse or abandoned building we should do something that makes every neighborhood better, like maybe buying property in affluent ridden neighborhoods and converting them into affordable housing. but no because then people like you would complain. so basically there would be an entire population of people displaced because no one wants to live in a dangerous neighborhood and no one wants poor people moving into their neighborhood. i think we’ve just solved the world’s problems.
posted by: cedarhillresident on September 5, 2007 7:42pm
westvillecharlie
you make a very good point… what is the difference?? But, I on occasion love to do a little Spanish dancing and Van Dome is the place to go (yes even at my age:) and I have to be honest, the crowd in general is a really good crowd out to have some fun and dance. It is those few bad asses that ruin it for the rest. The cops do full body searches there. As for the other places you brought up, those are the places (taurus, jacks and two or three others) that are the breeders of crime.
But I do agree this stop snitching thing is way out of control and the people that saw this crime may have come forward but the police may not be saying it to protect them.
