Police, Mayor Reckon With 5 Recent Homicides

By Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — Three weeks and five homicides after Mayor Justin Elicker and Police Chief Karl Jacobson gathered to chart a year-to-date drop in violent crime, the two hosted a follow-up presser Tuesday to describe a spate of apparently unrelated shooting deaths — and asserted that downtown is safe, and that the city’s crime numbers are still heading in the right direction.

“I’m very confident we’re going to get this under control,” Jacobson said about New Haven’s five homicides since Aug. 17, “and get people arrested.”

Jacobson and Elicker convened that press conference on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.

Standing alongside Asst. Chiefs Bertram Ettienne and David Zannelli and a handful of other top cops, the police chief and mayor spoke one day after the Monday afternoon shooting death of 31-year-old New Havener Briquann Chapman on Chapel Street near Ellsworth Avenue.

Chapman was the fifth person to be shot and killed in New Haven in just over two weeks. His homicide follows the Aug. 17 shooting death of 18-year-old Dillon Cornelius on College Street, the Aug. 18 shooting death of 40-year-old Dennis Atkinson on Ferry Street, the Aug. 25 shooting deaths of 26-year-old Daiquan Hyman and 32-year-old Ernest Williams on Dickerman Street, and Monday’s shooting death of the 31-year-old New Haven man.

Tuesday’s press conference also took place just under three weeks after Jacobson and Elicker addressed reporters about how violent crime — especially non-fatal shootings and confirmed shots fired — has declined, particularly from its pandemic-era peak.

Elicker and Jacobson said that the numbers still point towards an overall reduction in gun violence.

On Tuesday, they showed stats reporting that there have been 25 non-fatal shootings so far this year, compared to 60 at this time last year. Those stats also showed there have been 72 confirmed shots fired so far this year, compared to 111 at this time last year.

And they showed that there have been 13 homicides so far this year, compared to 8 at this time last year.

At the Aug. 10 press conference, the numbers for the year so far were 22 non-fatal shootings, 65 confirmed shots, and 8 homicides.

“We’ve had four incidents leading to five murders in the last 17 days,” Jacobson said on Tuesday. All are still active investigations. And all appear to be unrelated to one another, with the caveat that the investigation of Chapman’s death on Monday is still very early.

“That is unusual,” Jacobson said about so many apparently unrelated homicides in such a short period of time.

Jacobson talked through each of the five most recent homicides, providing updates on the investigations.

He said that the shooting death of Cornelius on College Street appears to have resulted from two groups of young people who knew one another and who were fighting.

Atkinson’s death on Ferry Street in Fair Haven appears to have resulted from a dispute between a drug dealer and a drug buyer.

Hyman’s and Williams’ shooting deaths on Dickerman Street appear to have resulted from a dispute between Hyman and someone he knew while in prison. That dispute flared up on Whalley Avenue the day of the double homicide, and then spilled over onto Dickerman Street.

And Chapman’s death might be connected to narcotics as well, based on the drugs and drug paraphernalia that cops found on scene.

Jacobson stressed that police have strong leads in all five homicide investigations — thanks to a mix of video surveillance footage, weapons and shell casings recovered at various scenes, community tips, and other investigative work.

Police have made only one arrest so far in these five cases.

That was of a 19-year-old West Havener, arrested on Aug. 27 in connection to the Aug. 17 homicide of Dillon Cornelius. Jacobson stressed that police do not believe this arrestee fired any shots on College Street in that early Sunday morning bout of gun violence.

Instead, this arrestee was shot at. Jacobson said police wound up arresting him because video surveillance footage showed him retrieving a gun from the scene of the shell casings.

State court records show that this arrestee currently faces felony charges of tampering with physical evidence, carrying a pistol without a permit, and criminal possession of a firearm, as well as another misdemeanor count related to a gun’s illegal “rate of fire enhancement.” He hasn’t entered pleas to any of those charges, and is currently being held on a $350,000 bond.

Jacobson said that this man would have been released on bond, but is still being held thanks to a “30 percent cash bond bill” recently approved by the state legislature.

This suspect “is not charged with shooting anybody,” Jacobson repeated. He said more arrests are still to come in this case of Cornelius’ homicide, which involved multiple guns fired.

He added that, after this man’s first arrest, police got a search warrant for a home in West Haven he was staying at and found “a 9 millimeter handgun with a drum magazine.” Police haven’t yet tested this weapon, but will soon, to see if it’s connected to Cornelius’ shooting death.

“It’s been a tough three weeks,” Elicker said at Tuesday’s presser. He said that police are making good progress on the investigations into these particular cases, and pointed out that crime stats are still down when compared to recent years.

“It’s very rare to have this many homicides and not as many non-fatal shootings,” Jacobson added. “This much violence in a short period of time would normally be related.” But that doesn’t appear to be the case here.

“It’s rough. We’ve been out there for 17 days, talking to families, going to funerals.” He said he went to Cornelius’ funeral on Saturday. “It’s difficult. It’s terrible when we lose a member of our community.”

His message to people committing these crimes: “We’re going to find out who you are and prosecute you and arrest you.”

And if you think about retaliating, “we’re going to be where you’re thinking about retaliating because we have great intelligence.”

He said that, the last time the city had seen this much violence, New Haven didn’t have as many cameras, “we weren’t making as many arrests.”

Elicker said that the number of overall shootings is down “significantly” when compared to recent years. “Unfortunately, there’s an element of randomness” to whether or not a shooting becomes fatal. “Tragically, over the last three weeks we’ve had five people that were lost. It’s hard for the community. At the same time, I think it is important to look at the numbers of shootings, [which] are lower in comparison to previous years. But the fact that we’ve had homicides is a very difficult thing.”

Jacobson also described the department’s proactive work to prevent further violence. He said that the department’s motor vehicle and plainclothes units were downtown over the weekend, and the regional joint task force for stolen cars was also out at work. Police gave out “a couple of tickets for noise ordinance” violations, and police also arrested three people from Bridgeport who were found to have a gun in their car.

“Our message is: We’re locking down downtown. Don’t come down there unless if you want to have a good time and be safe,” Jacobson said. “It is safe. We’re down there. We’re down there in force.” He said his own daughter called him over the weekend and asked if it was safe for her to go downtown. “Sure,” Jacobson replied. “I’ll be down there, too.”

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.