Ted Littleford
New Haven police finished a deadly year making arrests in 12 percent of all city homicides — while their counterparts in other major Connecticut cities had four to eight times as much success.
Twenty-five homicides occurred in New Haven in 2021, the highest rate in a decade.
Police have made arrests in three of those cases so far, the mayor and acting police chief announced at a year-end press conference on Thursday. They also made arrests this year in three additional cases involving homicides that took place prior to 2021.
That 12 percent arrest rate for 2021 homicides contrasts dramatically with figures provided to the Independent by other police departments:
• Waterbury police, for instance, have made arrests in all 10 homicides that occurred in 2021, according to department spokesperson Lt. Ryan Bessette.
• Bridgeport police have arrested suspects in 12 out of 19 homicides that occurred in 2021, with active warrants for suspects in two more cases, according to Capt. Kevin Gilleran of the detective bureau.
• Hartford police have cleared 20 out of 34 2021 homicides with arrests, and have “more very close to arrest,” reported department spokesperson Lt. Aaron Boisvert.
The three 2021 homicide-case arrests that New Haven police made this year were of the alleged killers of Kevin Jiang, Dwaneia Turner, and Alessia Mesquita.
Elicker: A Year Of Progress
Acting Chief Dominguez and Mayor Elicker at year-end crime presser: Cameras are coming.
Mayor Justin Elicker and his appointed “acting chief,” Renee Dominguez, put a positive spin on the department’s 2021 performance, at a press conference held Wednesday outside 1 Union Ave.
They noted that, while the number of homicides rose, crime went down in numerous categories in 2021 compared to 2020. For instance, the number of reported nonfatal shootings dropped from 121 to 110. (2020 itself was the city’s most violent year since 2012. The 110 number is still far greater than the 78 reported in 2019 and 50 reported in 2018.) Elicker also noted that violent crime has risen nationwide during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’ve been able to bend the curve downwards and save lives,” Elicker boasted.
He also said that number of gun arrests topped 200 in 2021, compared to 194 firearm arrests in 2020.
During the press conference, Elicker did allude, in passing, to the fact that other Connecticut urban departments’ “numbers are better than ours” when it comes to solving homicides and taking killers off the streets.
He offered one explanation for that difference: Those communities have more surveillance cameras. New Haven has 190 publicly owned cameras, compared to 1,200 in Hartford and 1,600 in Bridgeport. Elicker said his administration is addressing that: it is spending $3.8 million in federal pandemic-relief dollars to buy 500 new surveillance cameras to place around town.
Acting Chief Dominguez offered a second reason for the disparity: The NHPD is short detectives, with only 42 out of 54 budgeted slots filled. She predicted that upcoming promotions will build the department back up.
Both Hartford and Bridgeport have more cops and more detectives, along with bigger budgets, New Haven police point out. Meanwhile, New Haven has a young detective bureau.
Dominguez noted that sometimes cases get solved in a subsequent year: New Haven police made three arrests in 2021 involving 2020 homicides. That brought the total of arrests to six in connection with New Haven’s 20 homicides that year. On that score, again, New Haven lagged far behind other cities: Waterbury reported making arrests in 11 out of 13 2020 homicides to date, for instance. Hartford reported making 17 arrests to date in 25 homicides from 2020.
Cameras vs. Community
Paul Bass Photo
Investigators on scene of an early 2021 homicide, on Winthrop Avenue.
Beaver Hills Alder Shafiq Abdussabur, a retired police sergeant and one of the architects of New Haven’s street outreach worker program, said he’s skeptical that surveillance cameras are “a major crime-solving tool for homicides.” He told the Independent that New Haven’s lagging homicide-arrest numbers “reflect our need to create a public safety plan that is lacking and requires input from the community, where we can ensure that the community policing the city actually wants is taking place.” (Click here to read about a 10-point public safety plan Abdussabur presented on the campaign trail in 2021.) More important than making arrests in homicide cases, he argued, is preventing homicides in the first place.
When Elicker’s camera-buying plan won aldermanic approval on Dec. 20, several alders expressed similar skepticism about whether evidence exists that such widespread public electronic surveillance in fact helps solve homicides. Read about that here.
The Urban Institute examined the effects of added surveillance cameras, in this report. It found that in some communities the addition of cameras correlated with a decrease in violent crime. In other communities, it didn’t. But in all cases, “stakeholders” perceived that the cameras were helping. Prosecutors are often limited in whether they can use evidence in court that was collected from the cameras. However, detectives have reported that having information gleaned from surveillance video helps identify key evidence early on in an investigation, helping lead to suspects and informing their interviews with witnesses.
“Inasmuch as the promise of public surveillance cameras as a crime prevention and control tool is a powerful motivator for those investing in the technology, it is important to view it in the context of a larger community policing framework,” the report concluded.
The cameras have helped police investigate homicides in Hartford, and the cameras are only one piece of the strategy, said Kenny Howell.
Howell, a retired New Haven police lieutenant, currently serves as Hartford’s assistant chief. He said he “applauds” New Haven’s decision to purchase 500 more cameras.
“We have a talented group of people. We have a lot of technology to assist us. We have a lot of intelligence. We worked with a lot of people in surrounding towns and state and federal with intel. It’s grassroots. We go in. We get information. We have community members who trust you and deliver us information,” Howell said.
“It’s a factor,” he said of the cameras’ contribution to Hartford’s homicide arrests. “It has to be executed correctly. You can get as many cameras as you want. We have people watching these cameras, and they’re able to provide real-time information. I applaud New Haven for their efforts. They have to make sure they execute well. That’s one piece of it.”
2021's Homicide Victims
Alessia Mesquita (pictured with son Joseph): Cops charged her boyfriend with killing her, one of three arrests in 2021's 25 homicide cases.
In January, Alfreda Youmans, 50, and Jeffrey Dotson, 42, were found dead by the police inside a Winthrop Avenue apartment, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, 32, was shot and killed in Fair Haven, Marquis Winfrey, 31, was shot and killed in Newhallville, and Joseph Vincent Mattei, 28, was shot and killed in the Hill. Someone shot Kevin Jiang, 26, to death in Goatville on Feb. 6. Angel Rodriguez, 21, was shot to death in Fair Haven in mid-February, his body dumped by the Mill River in East Rock. Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, 28, was shot to death in the Hill on March 16 during an argument with two other women.
On March 26, Alessia Mesquita was shot dead in Fair Haven. Then 20-year-old Mariyah Inthirath was killed Saturday, May 15, on Sheffield Avenue and Jack Hopeton was killed near Orchard and George on Tuesday, May 18. On May 19, Tashawn Brown was shot dead across from Edgewood Park. On May 26, 34-year-old Adrian Barwise was shot inside a Sherman Parkway house during an apparent argument over a game, according to police. Miguel Ramos, 37, was shot dead on Springside Avenue on June 6.
Richard Whitaker Jr. was shot to death on Columbus Avenue in the Hill on June 15 — after having watched a gunman shoot his brother dead in the neighborhood the previous August.
On July 10, someone shot and killed Kevan Bonilla, 20, on Lombard Street in Fair Haven. Kevin Mills, 33, was shot to death on Dixwell Avenue on Aug. 10.
Tyshaun “TyTy” Hargrove, 14, was shot to death on Chatham Street on Aug. 25.
Thirty-year-old Zaire Luciano was shot and killed in the Annex early in the morning of Sept. 6.
Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz, 45, was shot to death in Fair Haven the night of Sept. 7.
Trequon Lawrence, 27, was shot to death Sept. 8.
Melvin Stanley, 30, was shot dead in a parking lot on Hazel Street on Oct. 17.
Lemuel Hamilton was shot to death on Thanksgiving Day.
Bridgeport's 2021 Case Updates
Following is a status list provided by Bridgeport police concerning their 2021 homicide cases:
- 1/20/2021 Victim Angel Valle – Arrest Made.
- 3/13/2021 Victim Gregory Ingram – Arrest Made.
- 3/17/2021 Victim Benjamin Bagley – Open Investigation.
- 3/19/2021 Victim James McClain – Arrest Made.
- 5/16/2021 Victims Charles Barnes & Norman Peters – Open Investigation.
- 6/14/2021 Victim Shamar Swinton – Open Investigation.
- 6/30/2021 Victim John Patrick – Arrest Made.
- 7/11/2021 Victim Joselito Calderon – Open Investigation.
- 7/13/2021 Victim Javier Flores – Arrest Made.
- 7/20/2021 Victim Rosali Umanzor – Active Warrant for Ricardo Garcia-Leiva (Suspect not in Custody).
- 8/28/2021 Victim Jamel Hayden – 2 Arrests Made.
- 9/9/2021 Victims Candace Goodwin & Austin Burgher – Arrest Made.
- 10/2/2021 Victim Jonathan DaSilva – Arrest Made.
- 10/6/2021 Victim Victor Cruz – Justified Homicide – Closed.
- 10/11/2021 Victim Nigel Powell – Arrest Made.
- 11/6/2021 Victim Raheem Lynch – Arrest Made.
- 12/3/2021 Victim Jaleen Parilla – Arrest Made.
- 12/12/2021 Victim Michael Harrington – Active Warrant — Suspect not in Custody — Suspect identity is not for immediate release to the public.
- 12/16/21 Victim Clinton Taylor — Arrest Made.
Call me jaded but I'm most worried that Waterbury has made arrests in 100% of their cases.