NHPD Photo
Police asked for help finding Adrian Bennett, pictured.
(Story updated and revised Thursday Oct. 31; revisions appear in bold.)
The police chief called on an alleged killer to turn himself in Tuesday, as new details emerged about gang involvement in the mass shooting that left an innocent woman dead in an after-hours nightclub.
Chief Dean Esserman made the appeal at a Tuesday afternoon press conference at police headquarters.
He directed his appeal to 28-year-old Adrian “Corn Bread” Bennett. Cops have been hunting for him since Saturday, when cops believe he shot at a rival gang members at 3:30 a.m. at a crowded private party at the Key Club Cabaret strip club on St. John street.
The shooter hit but didn’t kill his alleged target. His bullets also hit five innocent bystanders, including 26-year-old fashion designer Erika Robinson (pictured), who died from her wounds.
Now police have obtained a warrant for Bennett’s arrest for murder, five counts of first-degree assault, and criminal possession of a firearm. Once captured, he is to be held on $3 million bond.
“Today I ask him to turn himself in, to surrender, to the New Haven police for the safety of the community, and for his own safety,” Esserman said.
“I hope he hears loud and clear” that the cops, federal marshals, and other law-enforcement agents looking for him “will not let up.”
Bennett did not respond to a call placed to his cell phone. Nor could his attorney be reached. Family members said he was not at home when visited by a reporter.
(The Independent does not normally name or print photos of criminal suspects unless without hearing their side first. An exception: when police are looking for the public’s help in tracking down an allegedly dangerous suspect who has eluded capture.)
Police described Bennett as a 5‑foot-7-inch, 180 – 200-pound “light-complexioned black man” with “short receding hair and brown eyes.” He is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 5 to answer violation of probation charges connected to three felony drug offenses to which he had pleaded guilty. He has been found guilty of five separate felony drug and weapons offenses since 2006, according to the state’s judicial database.
Anyone with information on his whereabouts can call police at (203) 946‑6304.
Limon Spoke Too Soon
If the picture the police are piecing together of the murder prove true, the Key Club mass shooting, which was captured by the club’s surveillance video cameras, will serve as a reminder that even after large-scale federal busts, New Haven’s violent gang problem doesn’t disappear.
Police believe that Bennett was hanging out with some 20 “remnant” members of Newhallville’s notorious R2 gang at the Key Club at the time of the murder. A federal raid put many of the leaders of that gang behind bars in recent years; a previous chief, Frank Limon, declared the gang “dismantled.”
Now a younger generation of R2 leaders, who like their elder imprisoned predecessors consider themselves Crips, are in the sights of New Haven’s new federally supported anti-gang initiative, Project Longevity.
“Somebody always replaces somebody else. They never go away,” observed one law enforcement official familiar with the gang and how it has apparently rebuilt from the younger remnants of the old.
As the week developed, several people involved in the case downplayed R2 connections — they said Bennett used to belong to R2 but no longer does, or that only “remnants” of the old gang remain, with no official “R2” gang existing anymore. Others familiar with the case, however, said younger gang members have indeed revived R2, even if it has not returned to the strength it had before the federal raids. One person familiar with the gang said that in fact the members make a point of not advertising themselves as “R2,” especially to law enforcement, because they would then face additional charges if arrested under federal racketeering laws. In a similar vein, gang members regularly change their colors to avoid similar racketeering charges: “They don’t want to be implicated.”
The shooter at one point fired directly at the intended victim from close range at the club. The shooter then continued firing at his intended victim as the victim ran into a crowd of people — hitting other clubgoers who apparently had nothing to do with the dispute. Then the shooter fled the premises. The room was densely packed with patrons at the time of the shooting. Besides Robinson, who died of her wounds from the shooting, five other people sustained injuries from the shooter’s fusillade.
State Action Sought
Esserman & DeStefano.
The shooting has prompted local officials to call for a crackdown on nightclubs in New Haven. Four of this year’s homicides have occurred at or right by nightclubs.
Chief Esserman has begun meeting one-on-one with club owners in town to encourage them to run their clubs “responsibly.”
Meanwhile, Mayor John DeStefano said at Tuesday’s press conference that the city will seek six new laws from the state legislature in response to the ongoing violence. The laws would:
• Enable New Haven to create a nightclub district and levy a fee on club owners to pay for extra cops.
• Allow licensing of bouncers.
• Make permanent a pilot state program, operating only in New Haven, allowing municipalities to contest liquor permit renewals. The pilot expires June 30, 2014.
• Patch up “holes” in classifications of liquor permits. The Key Club private party was in a separate room and officially did not involve liquor service, although police said the crowd, which included minors, did have liquor served, not to mention noticeable use of marijuana.
• Allow the city to order clubowners to add more security.
• Enable cities to seek injunctions to close down clubs for public safety reasons.
“If they owe taxes, I can shut them down. If they have two shootings in a week, I can’t shut them down,” DeStefano said.
He has also asked the liquor commission to order the Key Club closed pending the completion of the police investigation into the mass shooting. DeStefano said the club’s owner has voluntarily agreed to stay closed during that time, but he wants the closing to be officially ordered
Public Housing
DeStefano, DuBois-Walton, and Asst. Chiefs Casanova and Archie Generoso at Tuesday’s press conference.
Police Tuesday were also looking for clues to the murder Monday night of 21-year-old Deran Maebery in the Westville Manor housing project in the West Rock neighborhood.
The housing authority had evicted Maebery’s family in February, according to authority Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton. Maebery still knew lots of people in the complex and had returned to hang out, she said.
Assistant Police Chief Luiz Casanova noted that the housing authority has succeeded in cutting crime dramatically at projects that have been rebuilt as modern, new-urbanist, mixed-income developments, such as Quinnipiac Terrace and the old Elm Haven (now Monterey Place).
Design and income mix are two factors that can affect crime, DuBois-Walton said. She noted that Westville Manor, which is four decades old, represents the old style of public housing: isolated, fully low-income, no real street grid or homes with front lawns. She said the project is “next in the queue” for a makeover once the authority completes its next two conversions, at Farnam Court and Ribicoff.
Two murders have occurred at Westville Manor this year, none at other public-housing projects, according to DuBois-Walton.
Oh hey, what do you know, my assumption was correct, it was gang related.