Paul Bass Photo
Christine White, mother of the murder victim, at center at Wednesday's press conference surrounded by the victim's stepfather, Norman Bendolph, and aunt, Janice Holley.
Marshals in North Carolina caught up with a 22-year-old man accused of committing a New Haven murder after twice getting out of prison for other crimes.
Officials celebrated the first fact and bemoaned the second at a press conference held Wednesday afternoon at 1 Union Ave.
They reported that they’ve begun the process to extradite the 22-year-old man back here to face charges of murdering 33-year-old Allen “Shawny” Freeman of Middletown during a robbery on New Haven’s Bassett Street on Nov. 6, 2020. A second suspect remains at large.
Freeman’s mother, aunt and stepfather thanked the police for their work at the press conference, as shown in the above video.
This is the 11th homicide arrest so far made by New Haven police, compared to six made in all of 2022.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson said that despite that progress, the police have been hampered in their investigations by repeat violent offenders returning to the community by posting bond, serving short sentences, or winning early release.
He used this latest case as an example: Freeman’s alleged killer, a person know to police as a Crips gang member, was out on probation for a separate gun offense at the time he allegedly committed this robbery-homicide.
Detectives zeroed in on him as a suspect in the murder. But they were waiting for DNA results and other key evidence to obtain a warrant.
Paul Bass Photo
Bleck Joseph, lead detective in the case.
In the meantime, the alleged killer was arrested for allegedly committing a separate act of domestic violence, Jacobson said. Jacobson said the police informed prosecutors that the man was also a murder suspect, in hopes of keeping him behind bars. But the man was able to win release on bond and return to the community on probation.
While the investigation continued, the man threatened his child’s mother and boyfriend with a firearm. The man then broke off his probation monitoring bracelet and fled South, according to the chief. It was there that marshals eventually caught up with the suspect, who allegedly disposed of an illegally possessed gun while trying to flee.
“This is what we’re talking about when we feel like we’re driving uphill,” Jacobson said at the press conference. “We don’t want to lock everybody up. There are few violent people like this we want to lock up.”
Jacobson and Mayor Justin Elicker praised the legislature for passing a gun law that includes a measure they’d pushed for: Requiring “serious” repeat gun offenders (who have at least two previous firearms convictions within the past five years) to post at least 30 percent of their bond when arrested on new weapons charges. The law, which the governor signed on Tuesday, also bans “open carry” of guns and would create a separate court docket designed to speed prosecution of gun cases.
Jacobson (pictured) said he needs to research this case more to determine whether this law would have prevented the arrestee from having committed all these crimes. The state judicial database reports that the man pleaded guilty in 2021 in two separate cases, one involving a 2021 felony first-degree assault, another involving an assault committed in 2019. He received an eight-year prison sentence to be suspended after two years for the former offense, a 364-day sentence for the latter. His rearrest was also being sought for a violent March 2023 incident in Hamden for which he was accused of eight felony firearms and threatening charges.
The larger point, Jacobson argued, is that the court system needs to take a tougher line on the most violent serious offenders whom police are scrambling to prevent from continuing to shoot people.
The larger point is whether the Department of Correction is doing any correction of young people who get locked up. What was going on the first time this person went to prison? Manson Youth, Connecticut’s youth prison where he probably went, is under investigation by the DOJ for civil rights violations. When the prison system fails to do any rehabilitation and instead devastates people and their entire families, the result is continued violent behavior instead of education and change.