Paul Bass Photo
Det. Matt Merced checked a sewer for a knife or other evidence.
(Updated: 2:32 p.m.) A dispute at a party — possibly over as minor a matter as a bottle of booze — led to a fatal knifing and a predawn SWAT raid early Sunday morning in a usually calm family neighborhood on the west side of town.
The events took place on Westerleigh Road near Fountain Street in the Beverly Hills section of Westville.
Police said the stabbing took place at the party around 12:10 a.m. Sunday. Two men put the victim in a car to take him to the hospital, then flagged down an ambulance. The victim, Josiah J. Alexander of Ashmun Street was pronounced dead at the Hospital of St. Raphael, where he underwent surgery for “multiple stab wounds to the chest.” Alexander turned 23 on Oct. 2. He is New Haven’s 22nd homicide victim this year.
(Update: Read the full police report and get the arrestee’s version here.)
“Numerous witnesses” told detectives who committed the stabbing, according to a police statement issued Sunday afternoon.
Police were piecing together the story form interviews with party attendees, some of whom had been intoxicated at the time. A storyline was emerging of a dispute between Alexander and the suspect over an object, possibly a bottle of alcohol; they took the dispute outside to the front lawn, where the stabbing allegedly occurred.
Around 4 a.m. the SWAT team began assembling at the suspect’s house, where the party took place. Police had a report that the suspect had brandished a gun earlier in the evening.
Around 6:30 a.m. the SWAT team was in place and negotiators called for the suspect to come out.
“Please come out. I want to speak to you,” an officer called through a bullhorn, according to a neighbor awoken by the hubbub,
The neighbor said two men came out of the house in response. They “willingly” obeyed a command to lift their shirts to show they were unarmed. Then they lay on the sidewalk and were eventually taken into custody.
“They had both sides of the street blocked off,” the neighbor said. Several neighbors reported being awoken by the SWAT arrest.
Police arrested one of the men, who’s 21, and charged him with murder. The man lives in the house. Police said he and Alexander got into a “dispute” during the party.
The party itself didn’t wake neighbors, although the two houses blocked off by police Sunday have been the source of continued complaints, neighbors said.
Initially, it was just on problem house, which for more than a year attracted groups of loitering young people, loud behavior, alleged drug-dealing, and repeated visits from the cops, neighbors said.
Then, in the last couple of months, a “nice couple” moved out of the house next door and was replaced by a group of people in their 20s who have also caused problems, said a woman across the street. That second house (pictured at the top of the story) is where police arrested the suspect Sunday morning and where detectives were working the crime scene.
“They [the tenants] had a pit bull. They didn’t keep it on a leash. They didn’t follow the rules of the neighborhood,” said the neighbor, an electrician who works the overnight shift at Sikorsky and sleeps during the day. She called the neighborhood otherwise “clean,” “quiet” and safe, an assessment echoed by others.
Matt Merced (pictured) was among the detectives moving in and out of the scene Sunday morning.
He scoured the block for evidence, flashing his light into the sewers, poking under cars …
… and rustling through garbage bins in advance of Monday morning’s curbside collection.