Paul Bass Photo
The shooters weren’t talking. The shootee wasn’t talking. This time, though, the neighborhood was talking.
That made all the difference.
As a result, police have made one arrest and about to make a second in a pair of related incidents of gunfire in Newhallville last month.
Assistant Chief Archie Generoso (pictured) said he hopes this marks a new trend in community cooperation with police, following on the flood of instant tips that led cops to swiftly and safely catch the man believed responsible for shooting to death a 58-year-old man at Burger King the night of July 24.
“People in that community are sick and tired of people shooting up their street. They’re starting to rise up. And they’re starting to talk to us,” Generoso said. “We’ve got to encourage that.”
Here’s what happened, according to Generoso:
They’re the kind of cases that rarely make headlines. They’re the kind of cases that can be tough to solve, sometimes impossible, unless witnesses and other citizens with information come forward to help.
On the night of July 12 shots were fired on Lilac Street. No one got hurt.
Police recovered the gun believed to have been used in that shooting. And members of the community helped police figure out who the shooter was: a neighborhood man with a history of selling drugs and shooting people. Detectives obtained a warrant to arrest him for carrying a pistol without a permit, discharging a gun, and possessing a weapon as a felon. They’re looking for him to arrest him.
The next night, July 13, someone fired a gun again on Lilac Street. This time someone got hurt: A man with a criminal history, a man active in the street drug-dealing life. He almost died, but survived. And he refused to tell the police a word about the incident. His family wouldn’t help either.
This man, too, lives on Lilac Street. He is the brother of the man who allegedly fired the shots on Lilac the night before.
Later on July 13, patrol officers and detectives tracked down the man they believe committed the shooting. They engaged him in a foot chase. They caught him and recovered a gun he tossed as he was fleeing. Cops were able to charge him with illegal gun possession and violating parole while they investigated the shooting further. But they didn’t yet have enough evidence to charge him with the shooting. (Police arrested the same suspect, who’s 28 years old, last month on assault and violation of probation charges in a separate incident, too.)
The community came through again. Witnesses supplied enough information to obtain a warrant to charge the man in the shooting.
Detective Wayne Bullock took the lead in the investigation.