Trequon Lawrence, outside his hospital workplace.
Paul Bass Photo
Sen. Winfield: Community needs more information about what’s behind the violence.
Someone shot 27-year-old Trequon Lawrence to death Wednesday night, New Haven’s third homicide in four days.
The renewed spate of shootings around town led one legislator to call for police and city leaders to offer the public more information about crime trends.
Lawrence was inside a blue Genesis G80 sedan when he was shot some time after 8 p.m. at Newhall and Division Street, according to people familiar with the incident. No one else was in the car.
After Lawrence was shot several times in the torso, the car crashed into a telephone pole, downing power lines.
Police received notice from the ShotSpotter identification system of 10 gunshots in the area at 10:18 p.m.
Lawrence was removed from the car and transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
United Illuminating arrived at the scene to secure the downed line. Cops found ten .9mm casings near the scene.
Lawrence was employed at Yale New Haven Hospital. He had just bought a home on Thompson Street on May 12, according to city land records.
He wrote on Facebook about why he purchased the home: “I purchased my first multi family dwelling. Truly blessed and highly favored. 🙏🏾 Yet this is a bitter sweet time in my life. As some of you may know I lost my baby girl a few weeks back 💔👼🏾. And in all honesty she was my motivation for buying the house. When she left a piece of me left with her. Nonetheless I still had to make this move toward putting my family in a better position. 💪🏾 in life we will experience many highs and many lows. But without the lows we can’t truly appreciate the highs. I am GRATEFUL overall and will continue to strive for greatness in light of my daughter. 🤞🏾”
Lawrence.
Lawrence’s homicide, New Haven’s 22nd of the year, comes two days after Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz was shot dead in Fair Haven. It comes three days after Zaire Luciano was shot dead in the Annex neighborhood.
Two other, nonfatal shootings have occurred in the past two days: the shooting and injury of a 32-year-old West Haven man Tuesday at 8:09 p.m. on East Pearl Street between Grand Avenue and Exchange Street; and the shooting and injury of a 56-year-old New Haven man Wednesday at 2:18 a.m. on Shelter Street between Grand and Clay Street.
In addition, a driver struck and killed a 49-year-old pedestrian Monday in the West River neighborhood.
Winfield: Tell Us More
Paul Bass Photo
Sen. Winfield: Community needs more information about what’s behind the violence.
Lawrence’s homicide occurred down the street from the home of State Sen. Gary Winfield. Winfield observed afterwards that the police department has not been giving the public much information about what’s behind this year’s flood of shootings. While the police need to keep certain details about individual shootings confidential while they investigate, in the past they have communicated more about what’s behind outbreaks of violence, Winfield said. He argued that officials and the community can’t craft an effective response without more information.
“My experience over a couple of decades is that you don’t get the intimate details of the shooting itself. But you get, ‘This is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing these are isolated incidents.’ Or: ‘They’re related to gangs or cliques’ … You get some kind of trending information to give some sense of what is actually happening,” Winfield said.
The state delegation has “reached out to the mayor to have a conversation about what has been going on. In order to tackle the problem we need to know what is actually happening,” he said. “People in the city have fear. Some of that is born from what is going on. Some of that is born from a lack of information.”
After Sunday’s homicide, retired police Sgt. and current Beaver Hills alder candidate Shafiq Abdussabur called on the governor to declare a state of emergency concerning the violence in New Haven. (Read more about that here.)
Carlson Release Crime Plan
In the wake of the latest violence, Republican mayoral candidate John Carlson Thursday morning released a crime plan for the city.
“New Haven is getting to be a very dangerous place. Violent crimes and shootings are happening at an alarming rate,” he is quoted as saying in a release.
He called for a strategy with the following elements:
• Hire more officers and give preference to New Haven residents when hiring.
• Appoint a NHPD chief with a vision and experience who’ll be expected to deliver results.
• Increase patrols and have officers be a visible presence in high-risk areas.
• Maintain body cameras and install dash cameras on all NHPD vehicles.
• Install more cameras throughout the city. (Traffic cameras, Playground cameras, RING type devices)
• Collaborate with community groups to educate and provide opportunities to high risk individuals.
• Support the police and initiate zero tolerance for all crimes.
“The Carlson Plan protects citizens from bad police, protects officers from false accusations, reduces violence and improves the quality of life for all residents,” Carlson stated.
22 Lives Lost, & Counting
Trequon Lawrence’s shooting death marks the 22nd homicide in the city so far this year.
New Haven has now had more homicides in the first eight-plus months of 2021 than it did in all of 2020.
In January, Alfreda Youmans, 50, and Jeffrey Dotson, 42, were found dead by the police inside a Winthrop Avenue apartment, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, 32, was shot and killed in Fair Haven, Marquis Winfrey, 31, was shot and killed in Newhallville, and Joseph Vincent Mattei, 28, was shot and killed in the Hill. Someone shot Kevin Jiang, 26, to death in Goatville on Feb. 6. Angel Rodriguez, 21, was shot to death in Fair Haven in mid-February, his body dumped by the Mill River in East Rock. Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, 28, was shot to death in the Hill on March 16 during an argument with two other women.
On March 26, Alessia Mesquita was shot dead in Fair Haven. Then 20-year-old Mariyah Inthirath was killed Saturday, May 15, on Sheffield Avenue and Jack Hopeton was killed near Orchard and George on Tuesday, May 18. On May 19, Tashawn Brown was shot dead across from Edgewood Park. On May 26, 34-year-old Adrian Barwise was shot inside a Sherman Parkway house during an apparent argument over a game, according to police. Miguel Ramos, 37, was shot dead on Springside Avenue on June 6.
Richard Whitaker Jr. was shot to death on Columbus Avenue in the Hill on June 15 — after having watched a gunman shoot his brother dead in the neighborhood the previous August.
On July 10, someone shot and killed Kevan Bonilla, 20, on Lombard Street in Fair Haven. Kevin Mills, 33, was shot to death on Dixwell Avenue on Aug. 10.
Tyshaun “TyTy” Hargrove, 14, was shot to death on Chatham Street on Aug. 25.
Thirty-year-old Zaire Luciano was shot and killed in the Annex early in the morning of Sept. 6.
Luis Fernando Gonzalez-Sandoz, 45, was shot to death in Fair Haven the night of Sept. 7.
With all due respect, Gary Winfield's commentary is lame and defensive. He has spent his political life aligning himself with anti-police rhetoric, accusations and making their lives more difficult, their profession more difficult while constantly painting them with a broad accusatory brush in the name of his version of police reform. That he's not getting a briefing should be a surprise? No. Has Winfield been to any of the Comstat meeting at the cop shop? All of these murders and shootings are in minority dominate neighborhoods - does he not have contacts? Where's his BFF Rep Porter? Where are all those clergy members - the ones who always complain and never have an answer. Are they talking to their congregants? Any insights?
Meanwhile at City Hall - Mayor Elicker and company do a walk about - as if they will learn anything about crime, violence and the roots of it that is turning this city into a more violent, less safe place to live. Bottom line is that none of them are doing much. Perhaps they have no clue about what to do.