(Updated) Mike Garvin and Sterling Bagley were on their way to deliver a refrigerator when they found themselves staring at two kids spraying each other with bullets on Dixwell Avenue.
The shootout happened around 3:30 p.m. Monday at Dixwell and West Division. Witnesses reported hearing 11 or more shots fired before the combatants fled the area on foot.
Police rushed to the scene and blocked off the corner. They were on the scene late Monday afternoon examining shell casing found there.
Garvin and Bagley (left to right in top photo) were stopped at the light at the corner when, they said, they saw a young man roll up right in front of them on a bike.
“I didn’t see his face,” Bagley said later. “All I saw was black.” Bagley said the bike-rider was dressed all in black; he said he thinks the man wore a ski mask.
Garvin and Bagley were on their way to the 36-unit Ethan Gardens apartment complex on Orchard Street, a former housing cooperative that Bagley now owns and Garvin serves as superintendent. In the back of Bagley’s white Ram 2500 pick-up was a fridge they planned to deliver to a tenant.
They watched as the young man on the bike, while still on the seat, fired a gun at another young man standing at the corner. The target rushed over to bushes. The shooter hopped off his bike, raced toward the target, and kept shooting.
Garvin said he saw the first shooter fire off “at least” 10 rounds. Then the target, who appeared to have been hit, fired back, another “five or six” shots, Garvin said.
One of the bullets hit the passenger door of Bagley’s pick-up. No one in the truck was hurt.
The two shooters then fled in opposite directions, according to the eyewitnesses — one up Dixwell toward West Harding, the other down West Division.
Garvin was in the passenger seat, Bagley, in the driver’s seat.
“I put my head down and hit the gas,” Bagley said. He drove a few blocks down Dixwell, then parked.
Lt. Thaddeus Reddish (pictured), Newhallville’s district manager, was down the street at the time. He said he heard the shots and ran over. By that time, he said, the combatants had already left the scene.
Other cops arrived to tape off the scene, direct traffic, gather evidence, and interview witnesses.
“We have no [victims or suspects identified] at this time,” Reddish said around 5 p.m.
He said the block was littered with casings. “I saw at least five,” he said. “It has to be at least 10.”
Other people gathered on the block soon after the shooting said they hadn’t been present and didn’t know what had happened.
At least one of the bullets hit the front of Moe’s Market across the street at Division and Dixwell. Mohammed al Najjar and Frankie Gustierez (pictured) said they were inside working at the time. They heard 10 – 11 bullets but didn’t see what happened out on the street, they said.
Accident Nearby
The shooting occurred just about a half-hour from a serious car accident blocks away.
The accident occurred at Basset and Watson streets at 2:58 p.m. according to police spokesman Officer Joe Avery: ” A vehicle drove through the stop sign and struck another vehicle. The vehicle that was struck, the front seat passenger was holding a one and half year old child. The child is stable, but suffered a concussion. Accident
reconstruction team is on scene.”