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Sgt. Mastroianni, Asst. Chief Zannelli, and Det. Kunz on Wednesday.
City police have arrested a 21-year-old man from Ansonia for allegedly shooting and injuring an innocent bystander during a fight on Crown Street at 2:30 a.m. on a recent Saturday.
Cops identified the suspect and pieced together what happened with the help of witness interviews, surveillance camera footage, a Yale police license plate reader, and a video posted to an Instagram account called “scumbagacademy.”
Asst. Chief David Zannelli described that arrest during a press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters Wednesday.
Standing alongside lead Det. Radim Kunz and supervising Sgt. James Mastroianni, Zannelli spoke about how the 21-year-old suspect has been charged with a mix of felony and misdemeanor charges for the July 26 nonfatal shooting. Those charges include first-degree assault, first-degree attempt to commit assault, carrying a pistol without a permit, first-degree reckless endangerment, and illegal discharge of a firearm.
The man was arrested on Aug. 5, and later released from custody on a $500,000 bond. He is being represented by the public defender’s office, and hasn’t yet entered pleas to any of the charges. His next court date in this case is scheduled for Aug. 20.
At Wednesday’s presser, Zannelli and Police Chief Karl Jacobson commended Mastroianni and Kunz for not just making an arrest for this shooting, but also for seizing the gun allegedly involved in the crime.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit written by Kunz on Aug. 4 and obtained by the Independent on Wednesday, at around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 26, city police officers who were assigned to a downtown bar detail heard a single gunshot and found a victim, a 23-year-old man from Stratford, lying on the ground in front of the Crown Street Garage at 213 Crown St.
The victim had a single gunshot wound to his abdomen. He was transported by ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital’s York Street campus, where he was listed as in “critical but stable” condition.
There were no ShotSpotter activations during the incident. Detectives later found a .45 caliber fired cartridge casing at the scene, as well as “three swabs of blood” on the north sidewalk.
The victim told a police officer that he did not see who shot him, but only heard the gunshot. He said he “did not believe he was the target of the shooting.”
City police Lt. Derek Werner later located an Instagram video posted by “@scumbagacademy” which showed a fight and the shooting.
Kunz watched that video, which reportedly showed two men grabbing at each other and throwing punches in the middle of Crown Street between Temple Street and Church Street. “A large crowd is gathered around the two subjects,” Kunz wrote. Neither of the two men involved in the fight was the gunshot victim who was later taken to the hospital.
During the fight, the two men briefly separate. One of the men pulls out a handgun, while the other runs away, heading west on Crown towards Temple. “Suspect #1 points the handgun toward the second male and fires one shot,” Kunz wrote. The suspect shooter then flees the scene, heading east on Crown towards Church.
Kunz and Det. James Marcum wound up interviewing three witnesses at the scene of the shooting.
The first witness said he and his group of friends — including the gunshot victim — left Secrets Night Club at 212 Crown St. and began walking east on Crown towards the Crown Street Garage, where their car was parked.
They saw a large group of people further up Crown on the north sidewalk. The witness said a large group began to scatter when he heard a single gunshot “and felt the bullet travel past him.” He then saw his friend “fall to the ground and realized he was shot.” He said he didn’t see the shooter. He also said he and his friends did not have an argument with anyone during the night and did not believe the victim was targeted.
Video footage from city and Yale police surveillance cameras as well as a Yale police license plate reader led cops to identify the license plate of a vehicle the suspect appeared to get in on Church Street as he fled. That license plate belonged to a black 2005 Honda CR‑V registered to a man in Ansonia.
Still other surveillance video footage — taken by privately owned cameras attached to downtown businesses which, through a program called Fusus, are accessible to the city’s police department — appeared to show the owner of that car and the man later arrested for the shooting walking around downtown as early as 12:55 a.m.
They appeared to walk around Temple Street, Crown Street, College Street, and High Street. They entered Aladdin Crown Pizza at around 12:59 a.m., bought two slices of pizza, and left at 1:08 a.m. They appeared to run up to a different fight that took place on Church Street near Center Street at around 1:59 a.m., and that dispersed at around 2:01 a.m.
The two then found their way down to Crown Street near Church at around 2:23 a.m.
The fight and subsequent shooting took place at around 2:29 a.m.
One of those surveillance videos provided “high-quality, unobstructed views of the faces” of both men — that is, the owner of the Honda CR‑V and the person later arrested for the shooting.
On July 28, Sgt. Mastroianni forwarded images of the two men to a detective with the Ansonia Police Department, who showed the images to an Ansonia school resource officer, who then “immediately” identified the two men by name, having had interactions with both men during his time as a school resource officer.
Then, on Aug. 4, four city officers — including Kunz and Mastroianni — traveled to Ansonia to execute a search warrant on the Honda CR‑V.
The affidavit does not include an interview with the shooting suspect, and the Independent was not able to reach the suspect or the suspect’s attorney for a comment by the publication time of this article.
The affidavit does, however, include an interview with still another witness who said he saw a silver handgun in the alleged shooter’s backpack the night of the shooting. That witness said that a friend of theirs was involved in the 1:59 a.m. fight at Church and Center that preceded the 2:25 a.m. fight and shooting. The witness said he was separated from the alleged shooter before the second fight, and only heard the sound of the gunshot.
That witness also said the alleged shooter later told him, in reference to the second fight and the gunshot fired: “Did you hear that bang? That was me.”