Police Search For 15-Year-Old’s Killer

By Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — City police are still looking for the person who killed 15-year-old Career High School student Kaiden Phillips Saturday night in a shooting that cops believe took place on Lincoln-Bassett School’s campus.

Police Chief Karl Jacobson detailed that investigation Monday during a press briefing on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.

He said that, at around 7:48 p.m. Saturday, dispatchers received 911 calls about a person shot in the area of Butler Street and Bassett Street in Newhallville. Police did not receive any ShotSpotter notifications about the shooting.

Upon arrival, officers found the victim, later identified as Kaiden, lying on the ground and unresponsive. He was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital at 20 York St., where he died from his injuries.

Jacobson said police believe that Kaiden was shot on the property of Lincoln-Bassett School and then ran from the school property. The school was closed and there were no events taking place at Lincoln-Bassett at the time of the Saturday night shooting, he said.

“Detectives worked through the night” to talk with potential witnesses and find video footage that might shed light on what happened, Jacobson said.

He said Kaiden’s homicide might be related to a fight that broke out at a football game Friday night. It also might be related to “another incident in July on a field in Hamden.” Those incidents were just fistfights, Jacobson said. “We thought these fights were over.” Unfortunately, this is possibly what led to his death.”

So far in the investigation in Saturday’s homicide, “we’re finding that most of the people that were either present or somewhere in the area are 15 or even younger,” Jacobson said. “This case is extremely difficult, but I have faith in our detectives.”

Jacobson urged anyone who knows anything about what might have happened to come forward. “We need people to do the right thing. We need people to come forward.” Doing so will not just help provide justice for Kaiden’s family and loved ones, but also might protect “the other kids in the city” from falling victim to retaliatory violence.

CT Violence Intervention Program (CT VIP) Executive Director Leonard Jahad said that Kaiden was a basketball player at Career, and that he had been referred to CT VIP several months ago.

Jahad said he and his team visited Career on Monday to provide support services for Kaiden’s classmates in the wake of his shooting death. “The kids are in very bad shape,” Jahad said. “He was very, very popular.”

“Kaiden was a hard worker, a solid student who held down a job and was active in the community,” New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent. “He loved basketball. He was a personable young man and well liked by his fellow students and his teachers, who already miss him greatly. Our hearts go out to Kaiden’s family, his friends, and to all in the community who knew him. This is a terrible loss.”

Harmon said that a counseling team and professional grief counselors were “activated” Monday morning and will be available at Career throughout the week.

At the press briefing, Jacobson said the city held an emergency meeting Monday morning with the mayor, police, the schools superintendent, violence intervention workers, and youth outreach workers, among others. “We’re putting together lists of kids that are at risk in our schools” and doing emergency meetings with them all, he said. Youth outreach and violence intervention workers will be in close communication with the school district’s eight School Resource Officers (SROs), which are police officers stationed in city schools. They’ll also be “knocking on doors” and offering assistance directly to make sure people are safe.

“We’re just asking that anyone who has any information, whether their kids or them, please come forward.”

Kaiden’s shooting death marks the city’s 14th homicide of the year so far. He is also the second 15-year-old to be shot and killed, following the April homicide of Aaron Robinson.

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