Thomas Breen photo
Chief Reyes (center) at Monday police presser.
Police are following leads in two of the violent episodes that have rattled the city over the past week — a school carjacking and the shooting up of a school official’s home.
City Police Chief Otoniel Reyes and Asst. Chiefs Renee Dominguez and Karl Jacobson offered updates on the shooting of Asst. Schools Superintendent Paul Whyte’s Osborn Avenue home in Beaver Hills Friday night and the armed carjacking of a school social worker in the Hill a day earlier, during and after a press conference held Monday morning on the front steps of 1 Union Ave..
The focus of the presser was a spate of violent crime that beset New Haven last weekend, including the shooting death on Lawrence Street Saturday night of 26-year-old Yale grad student Kevin Jiang.
Dominguez and Jacobson said that the armed car theft took place at around 7:45 a.m. Thursday outside of Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy on Columbus Avenue in the Hill.
A social worker who works for the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system at Roberto Clemente had just arrived for work when a masked suspect with a weapon approached her and stole her car, Jacobson said.
“Patrol officers recovered the car that very same day,” he said. The car was found on George Street near Dwight Street.
“Right now there’s one suspect,” Jacobson added.
He said that the social worker — whose name the police have not released — believed the person who robbed her was “younger.”
“We know most of these kids work in tandem,” Jacobson said, and so there may have been more than one person ultimately involved in the incident.
He said that the social worker has not been able to identify the suspect “because of the mask situation,” he said. “We’re hoping there’s DNA in the car.”
“Significant Leads” In Shooting Of Asst. Supt.‘s House
Reyes also gave an update Monday morning about the the latest with the city police investigation into Friday night’s shooting of Whyte’s house in Beaver Hills.
Reyes said that city patrol officers responded to Osborn Avenue between Pelham Lane and Wellington Road at around 7:30 p.m. Friday after receiving a gunfire alert through the activation of ShotSpotter in the area.
“The ShotSpotter activation indicated multiple gunshots, as many as four,” Reyes said.
When officers arrived, he said, they found that Whyte’s home had been “struck several times by gunfire. There was exterior damage to the home. Fortunately, no one was hurt. However, the home was occupied at the time the gunfire hit the home.”
Whyte told the Independent on Sunday that he was at home at the time with his wife and mother-in-law. All three hit the floor when shots broke through the house’s window.
Reyes said police believe that the gunman was in a sports utility vehicle, “and that he or she fired the gunshots at the residence potentially from the vehicle.” The vehicle was last seen traveling on Osborn Avenue towards Goffe Street. Police are looking for the public’s help with any other identifying details about the vehicle or gunman.
“Detectives have collected evidence,” he said. “They have worked this case and are continuing to work this case to determine what exactly happened here. Whether or not his home was specifically targeted, or whether nor not his home was the victim of a random act of violence: These are the questions that we at this time don’t know.”
He added that police have developed some “significant leads” on the case, but that they could not disclose any more at this time due to the ongoing investigation.
