Arrests, Lockdowns Detailed After Shootings

A likely miscommunication between police dispatch and the school district’s security team caused 10 schools to go into some form of lockdown during an East Rock drive-by shootout — which, thanks to quick police work, has led to two arrests and the confiscation of four guns, one of which has now been connected to the crime scene.

City Police Chief Karl Jacobson and Mayor Justin Elicker provided those updates Tuesday afternoon during a press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. 

The presser took place one day after the occupants of two different cars shot nearly two dozen bullets at one another soon after 8 a.m. on Monday as the vehicles drove through Edwards, Livingston, and Lawrence Streets in the East Rock neighborhood. While the moving cars, and at least one parked car, were hit during the fusillade of gunfire, miraculously enough, no one appears to have been injured. 

That incident led to 10 schools going into temporary lockdowns — at first full, then partial — after an apparent miscommunication between police dispatchers and the school district’s security team over whether or not Monday’s drive-by shooting was an ​“active shooter” incident.

Following the morning’s harrowing shootout, some community members, including those who attended Monday night’s East Rock Community Management Team meeting, have asked why so many schools — even those not immediately proximate to the shootout — were put in lockdown. (See more on that meeting below.)

Jacobson said on Tuesday that police found 23 cartridge casings ​“throughout a couple different city blocks” after the Monday morning shootout. With the help of community-provided video evidence and statements, police tracked down an Acura MDX, one of the cars they believe was involved in the incident, to Hamden. They tracked down another car they believed was involved, a Dodge Durango, to Fair Haven.

“Through investigative efforts,” the city police department’s shooting task force and criminal intelligence unit working with state and Hamden police ​“determined that the persons responsible for the gunfire” may have fled to a house on Newhall Street in Hamden ​“which police have identified as a known location for criminal activity,” Jacobson continued.

“After conducting surveillance,” cops observed and then arrested two individuals, one a 19-year-old and the other an 18-year-old, who exited that Newhall Street house, Jacobson said. He said police found two handguns — a Mossberg MC1SC 9mm and a Glock 22 .40 caliber — on those individuals.

Both have been charged with criminal possession of a firearm, possessing weapons in a motor vehicle, pistol without a permit, high-capacity magazines, and larceny of a motor vehicle. 

The police chief said that city cops soon thereafter obtained a search warrant for the Newhall Street house. That search yielded the seizure of two more handguns –a Sig Sauer .357 and a Springfield XD .40 caliber.

“The investigation for the gunfire has been assigned to the shooting task force,” Jacobson said. He said that cops anticipate making more arrests thanks to these gun seizures.

After the presser, Jacobson said that city cops have received lab test results from the state confirming that fired cartridge casings found at the crime scene match the 9mm gun seized at the Newhall Street house.

“It was a crazy scene, with gunfire in the area, vehicles fleeing,” Jacobson said as he praised his officers, including Lt. Elliott Rosa, Sgt. Chris Cameron, and Sgt. Ryan Macuirzynski, in tracking down suspects, seizing weapons, and making arrests — all without using force — just a few hours after the shootings took place.

Jacobson emphasized that these young people arrested yesterday ​“were well known to us.” He predicted police will find that these seized guns will ​“match a lot of gunfire” from other city shootings besides just Monday’s.

"Active Shooter" Misunderstanding

During the East Rock drive-by shooting Monday, officials closed down access to 10 schools in all, not just those in the immediate vicinity, out of a sense of extra caution, schools spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent on Monday. Harmon described the measures on Monday as beginning as full lockdowns, with people sheltered in place. They morphed into partial lockdowns before ending, during which people could move freely inside the building, but everyone was kept indoors. 

At Tuesday’s presser, Jacobson was asked why a police press release from Monday morning said that Booker T. Washington Academy on State Street went into lockdown. Was that a misprint? Isn’t that school quite a few blocks away from where the shootings took place?

That wasn’t a misprint, Jacobson replied. 

Jacobson and Elicker said that both the police department and the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district have the power to put schools in lockdown if they deem that safety measure necessary. Jacobson said that police dispatchers are in close contact with the school district’s ​“intel center” and security team to make sure they have up-to-date info.

“As the situation unfolded” Monday morning, Jacobson said, the school district’s security team was ​“monitoring our radio, and heard the path of travel” of the shooters. He said the school district also might have ​“misunderstood” and thought that police dispatchers were saying that there was an ​“active shooter,” whereas in fact there were ​“two vehicles shooting back and forth.” Because of that misunderstanding, ​“some extra schools were shut down.”

“It came through as an active shooter,” Jacobson repeated about the ​“message that was passed from dispatch to the Board of Ed and from the Board of Ed to the head of the Board of Ed security.” Usually, when you talk about active shooters that ​“means in the building.” That was not the case here. ​“There was some misunderstanding about that.”

“We’re going to sit down and make sure that that system is working well. It’s better to err on the side of caution, but we also know that locking schools down that don’t need to be locked down is harmful to kids,” Jacobson said.

Elicker agreed. ​“Generally, we want to be abundantly cautious,” he said. That said, it’s ​“terrifying for other kids” and school staff to go into lockdown. ​“We want to make sure that we’re not doing it unnecessarily.”

Asked on Monday night about who exactly made the call for the morning’s school lockdowns, NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon said the following: ​“The initial call to shut down came from the police concerning a school in the vicinity of the shooting. Our chief of security shut down additional schools based on information he was getting as the situation progressed. The security chief decided to revert to partial lockdown after police updated him on the status of the search.”

"A Very, Very Scary Situation"

Tuesday’s police-headquarters presser followed a presentation Monday night by Assistant Police Chief David Zannelli about the shooting to roughly three dozen East Rock neighbors who turned out for a Zoomed online meeting of the neighborhood’s community management team.

Zannelli started out by recapping the basics of the incident that took place Monday morning: Two vehicles ​“were driving past each other,” ​“shots were fired at each vehicle from within,” officers made ​“several arrests and we have recovered several firearms.”

Zannelli emphasized that ​“there was no active school shooter or anything like that” on Monday. He said the police department heard rumors over the course of the morning that there was a school shooter, from parents who were concerned about their kids’ schools going into lockdown.

But, to be clear, there was no school shooter, Zannelli repeated. This was instead ​“two cars in passing firing rounds at each other.”

East Rock resident Ben Berkowitz, who witnessed part of the shooting, was the first to jump in and ask Zannelli a question.

“This is the second shootout like this” in the neighborhood in recent weeks, he said. ​“What’s the plan, guys?” What are the mayor and city police leaders doing to make sure these types of shootings don’t happen again and again?

Zannelli said that the mayor and the police chief are working with other municipal leaders across Connecticut to ​“champion stricter penalties” for repeat gun offenders in Hartford.

Under current state law, people who are arrested for four or five gun crimes, ​“they’re getting out early, their bonds are lower,” he said. He said the mayor and the chief are pushing for ​“passing a little bit stricter legislation when the 1 percent that are responsible for creating 90 percent of the violence is caught and apprehended.”

“We believe in first, second, even third chances,” the assistant chief said. ​“But seven, eight chances is a little much.”

Click here to read a CT NewsJunkie article about the Democratic mayors’ proposal to reduce gun violence by keeping repeat offenders behind bars. New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield is quoted in that same article as expressing caution about the proposal if it does not also ​“seriously deal” with the ​“panoply of things that tend to be the reasons people cause crime”.

Berkowitz said on Monday that, as someone born and raised in New Haven, ​“I have never been this proximate to this many violent acts” as have been the case in recent weeks.

Zannelli responded that one of the juveniles arrested on Monday ​“has been involved in many” car thefts. He added that drive-by shootings almost always involve stolen cars, and that both of the cars involved in Monday’s shooting appear to have been stolen. ​“We need to close up some of these loopholes. A large abundance of our shootings are used with stolen cars.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa then asked the assistant chief if he believes there is any correlation between high rates of public school chronic absenteeism and these recent shootings. She asked about what the Board of Education and youth-violence prevention efforts like YouthStat are doing to engage young people and prevent shootings. ​“What part are they playing in trying to change the lives of these juveniles?”

“We are partnered up with the Board of Ed,” Zannelli replied. ​“We are working with YouthConnect” and various outreach workers to, for example, try to prevent what has been a common occurrence of students from different schools taking the bus to the Green downtown and then getting into fights. As for any direct connection between students missing school and Monday morning’s specific shootings in East Rock, he said he’s not sure.

Festa thanked the assistant chief for the updates on ​“a very, very scary situation.” She pointed out that kids walk to school and adults commute to work at around the time that the shootings took place.

“I’m just in shock as everyone else. I’m really freaked out by it. It was just really freaky and scary,” she said.

Liam Brennan, a Westville attorney and Democratic mayoral candidate challenging incumbent Justin Elicker, asked Zannelli what the police department is doing to find out ​“where these guns are coming from” and then disrupt that pipeline. 

“One of the issues” the department is facing is that ​“there are more guns this year than last year,” Zannelli said. ​“We are making more arrests” of people with guns. ​“One of the main problems is ghost guns.” He said that young people and others are increasingly ordering gun parts from out of state, and then assembling them and using them in New Haven. These guns don’t have serial numbers, he said, and are therefore difficult to track.

Brennan also asked Zannelli about who exactly is responsible for making the final call around school lockdowns. ​“There were a bunch of school lockdowns” in the city on Monday, he said, not just for schools immediately adjacent to where the shooting took place.

Is it the school system’s decision to lock down a school? The police department’s? Someone else’s?

“Schools can self-lockdown and we’ll notify them as well” if there is an ​“ongoing issue or potential threat,” Zannelli said. ​“From what I understand, the lockdown was relatively brief, but it’s done as a precautionary measure.” As a parent of three children himself, Zannelli recognized how disruptive and scary it can be to have children in school in lockdown.