Arrests, Lockdowns Detailed After Shootings

by THOMAS BREEN

A likely miscommunication between police dispatch and the school district’s security team caused 10 schools to go into some form of lockdown during an East Rock drive-by shootout — which, thanks to quick police work, has led to two arrests and the confiscation of four guns, one of which has now been connected to the crime scene.

City Police Chief Karl Jacobson and Mayor Justin Elicker provided those updates Tuesday afternoon during a press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. The presser took place one day after the occupants of two different cars shot nearly two dozen bullets at one another soon after 8 a.m. on Monday as the vehicles drove through Edwards, Livingston, and Lawrence Streets in the East Rock neighborhood. While the moving cars, and at least one parked car, were hit during the fusillade of gunfire, miraculously enough, no one appears to have been injured.

That incident led to 10 schools going into temporary lockdowns — at first full, then partial — after an apparent miscommunication between police dispatchers and the school district’s security team over whether or not Monday’s drive-by shooting was an “active shooter” incident.

Following the morning’s harrowing shootout, some community members, including those who attended Monday night’s East Rock Community Manage- ment Team meeting, have asked why so many schools — even those not immediately proximate to the shootout — were put in lockdown. (See more on that meeting below.)

Jacobson said on Tuesday that police found 23 cartridge casings “throughout a couple different city blocks” after the Monday morning shootout. With the help of community-provided video evidence and statements, police tracked down an Acura MDX, one of the cars they believe was involved in the incident, to Hamden. They tracked down another car they believed was involved, a Dodge Durango, to Fair Haven.

“Through investigative efforts,” the city police department’s shooting task force and criminal intelligence unit working with state and Hamden police “deter- mined that the persons responsible for the gunfire” may have fled to a house on Newhall Street in Hamden “which police have identified as a known location for criminal activity,” Jacobson continued.

“After conducting surveillance,” cops observed and then arrested two individuals, one a 19-year-old and the other an 18-year-old, who exited that Newhall Street house, Jacobson said. He said police found two handguns — a Mossberg MC1SC 9mm and a Glock 22 .40 caliber — on those individuals.

Both have been charged with criminal possession of a firearm, possessing weapons in a motor vehicle, pistol without a permit, high-capacity magazines, and larceny of a motor vehicle.

The police chief said that city cops soon thereafter obtained a search warrant for the Newhall Street house. That search yielded the seizure of two more handguns –a Sig Sauer .357 and a Springfield XD .40 caliber.

“The investigation for the gunfire has been assigned to the shooting task force,” Jacobson said. He said that cops anticipate making more arrests thanks to these gun seizures.

After the presser, Jacobson said that city cops have received lab test results from the state confirming that fired cartridge casings found at the crime scene match the 9mm gun seized at the Newhall Street house.

“It was a crazy scene, with gunfire in