Chief: Recent Shootings Not Related

Police do not currently believe that the three homicides and two nonfatal shootings that have rocked the city over the past four days are related.

Interim Police Chief Renee Dominguez and Mayor Justin Elicker offered that take Thursday afternoon during a press conference held outside of the Winchester Avenue police substation in Newhallville.

The focus of the presser was on recruitment.

The police department will be opening a new month-long application process starting Monday, Sept. 13. Thursday rain-soaked press conference — attended by nearly two dozen police officers, supervisors, clergy, and Newhallville community leaders — sought to get the word out to New Haveners to apply to join the force as the department seeks to fill dozens of vacancies and replenish its ranks. (See more below on the recruitment pitch.)

While the reason for the presser was recruitment, the main topic of discussion wound up being the uptick in gun violence across town.

That spate of violence has seen three homicides and two nonfatal shootings across the city over the past four days.

On Sunday, 30-year-old Zaire Luciano was shot dead in the Annex neighborhood. On Tuesday, 45‑year-old Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz was shot dead in Fair Haven. And on Wednesday night — just a few blocks away from the site of Thursday’s presser in Newhallville—27-year-old Trequon Lawrence was shot and killed near Newhall Street and Division Street.

In addition to those three homicides, the city also saw two nonfatal shootings on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in Fair Haven. There was also a separate case in which a motorist killed a pedestrian on Chapel Street.

Chief: Recent Shooting Appear Not To Be ​“Connected”

Dominguez said on Thursday that, at this time, the police believe that the three recent shooting homicides and two nonfatal shootings are ​“standalone.”

“Of these five in this cluster we had last weekend into last night, we do not have anything right now to say that one is connected to the other,” she continued.

She stressed that the investigations into all five shooting incidents are still in early stages.

“There’s a lot of work that has fallen on the detective bureau,” particularly when these shootings take place back to back to back, she said.

What about the years-long spike in violence? Of the 22 homicides that have taken place in the city so far this year, do they appear to be random incidents? Retaliatory? Affiliated with one gang? Several different groups?

“If we were to look at violence overall in 2021, we do have gang and group violence that we do know are affiliated with these shootings and homicides,” Dominguez said. ​“However, we do have domestic homicides that we haven’t seen as frequently in years past. We do have other homicides and shootings that we do not have a connection to a specific gang or group.”

The police department is not able to say that one particular gang or group is causing all this violence, she said. She also noted that the violence that has beset the city this year has occurred in different neighborhoods, leading the department to believe that many are unrelated to one another.

She implored community members to come forward to talk to the police, or to clergy or trusted neighborhood leaders with close working relationships with the police, to share any information they can about any of these recent incidents.

“We’re here to protect New Haven. We’re doing everything we can to reduce the violence,” she said.

Mayor: Causes Include ​“All Of The Above”

Asked for his take on why the city has seen so much violence recently, Elicker pointed to a diversity of likely causes. Those include:

• The ​“explosion in the number of guns that have been purchased” during the pandemic. Elicker and Dominguez said that the police have seized 140 guns and made 135 gun-related arrests so far this year. By this time last year, those numbers were 92 and 109 respectively.

• The economic, social, psychological, and public health fallout from the pandemic. ​“So many people are experiencing increased pressures economically with unemployment,” Elicker said. They’ve experienced mental health issues related to losing relatives, losing a job, being cooped up at home, and the trauma of having experienced gun violence in their own communities.

• Gun violence interruption programs — including street outreach efforts like Project Longevity and Project SafeNeighborhoods — were effectively put on pause for much of the first year of the pandemic. While those efforts have now resumed, he said, the temporary stop has likely contributed to some of the violence.

• And while gun violence is certainly related to gangs and groups feuding, Elicker said, some is related to domestic violence, some related to individual disputes that have escalated out of control, such as a fatal fight on Sherman Parkway several months ago that purportedly stemmed from a dice game dispute.

“Because there’s all these different issues going on at the same time, it makes it more challenging for us to address it,” the mayor said. ​“We need to do all of the above to respond to it.”

Some of those responses include partnering with surrounding police department to ramp up the Shooting Task Force, funding more street outreach workers and walking beats, and focused on taking guns off the streets.

Recruitment Pitch

As for the recruitment pitch portion of Thursday’s press conference, Sgt. Paul Finch said that the application period will formally begin on Monday, Sept. 13. Finch will be helming the department’s recruitment efforts alongside Capt. David Zannelli as Lt. Dana Smith transitions to his new role as district manager for Newhallville/East Rock in the coming weeks.

Interested police officer applicants can go to policeapp.com to apply. They can also go to the police department headquarters at 1 Union Ave. to pick up an application packet and ask questions.

The department will be hosting application information sessions at Bowen Field on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 1 p.m.; on Sept. 16 on Zoom; at the Ralph Walker Ice Rink on Upper State Street on Sept. 20; and at a to-be-determined Fair Haven public school on Sept. 30.

Finch said the department will also be hosting a ​“conditional clinic” on Sept. 18 for interested applicants to test their ​“physical agility” before applying.

Click here to watch the press conference in full.