Police found a 29-year-old man shot in the back and the head at Liberty and Putnam Streets Sunday night.
The man, Edward Lowery, was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after. He became the year’s 31st homicide victim.
Cops got the call of a man shot at 6:33 p.m., according to Lt. Julie Johnson, head of the Major Crimes Unit. They found Lowery in the street by a bicycle, which had fallen on him.
He was shot at least three times, Johnson said. “We won’t know for sure [how many times] until we do an autopsy.”
Lowery was in jail on a drug charge until February, at which point he was released to a halfway house, according to Johnson. He subsequently escaped from the house; police had a warrant for his rearrest, Johnson said.
Police don’t yet have a motive for the shooting; the investigation has just begun.
Two recent homicides also took place on Sunday nights. (Read about those here and here.)
The homicide took place in Trowbridge Square, a mini-neighborhood centered around a Green tucked between Howard Avenue and Church Street South in the Hill neighborhood. It has a proud history, founded in the 1830s as a model integrated community by abolitionist minister Simeon Jocelyn. It hit hard times in the 1980s, ravaged by the crack trade, then in the 1990s by out-of-town real-estate speculators. Since then it has been rebuilt in fits and starts. A group called Trowbridge Renaissance has for 10 years worked to bring the historic area back. Most recently preservationists have organized to save three historic but rundown homes from a city bulldozer.
Lt. Holly Wasilewski, the Hill’s top cop, said Trowbridge Square has been quiet lately. It’s not one of the Hill’s “hot spots,” she said. The most recent incident she could recall was “a robbery five weeks ago on Portsea.” She said that Lowery “wasn’t from the neighborhood.” In keeping with the new police chief’s directive, Wasilewski visited with Lowery’s aunt, whom she knows from Stevens Street, at the hospital after the shooting. She said police were working on finding other relatives of the victim as well.
It's always hard to here of the death of someone but it's even harder when it hits your family circle to my family please stay prayed up the Lord will bring us through this!
Nikki