A 57-year-old New Havener named Russell McKenzie was shot and killed in the Jocelyn Square neighborhood in the early hours of Wednesday morning — marking the city’s third homicide in as many days.
The New Haven Police Department (NHPD) first posted about this incident on the social media site X on Wednesday at 11:04 a.m. In that initial press release, city police said the matter was being investigated as a “suspicious death.”
In a follow-up press release sent out on Thursday morning, police declared that this incident has now been deemed a homicide.
City police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart wrote that, at around 1:14 a.m. Wednesday, New Haven police officers were dispatched to an address on Walnut Street near East Street for the report of a person shot.
“Upon arrival, officers made contact with the caller outside of the residence. She was extremely distraught and having difficulty breathing; she was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital as a precaution.”
Bruckhart wrote that emergency medical personnel responded and pronounced a resident of the apartment, later identified as Russell McKenzie, as deceased. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner personnel removed McKenzie’s body. A search warrant was completed for the apartment. And an autopsy determined that McKenzie’s body “sustained a gunshot wound and the death has since been ruled a homicide.”
Police ask that anyone who may have witnessed this incident or who may have information valuable to investigators to call detectives at 203 – 946-6304 or through the department’s anonymous tip-line at 866 – 888-TIPS (8477).
McKenzie’s shooting death took place just hours after 17-year-old New Haven Daily Jackson was shot and killed in Newhallville on Tuesday evening. And it took place less than two days after 25-year-old New Havener Christopher Santana was shot and killed in the parking lot behind a West River apartment complex on Monday afternoon.
McKenzie’s death marks the 14th homicide so far this year in New Haven. According to the city’s most recently published CompStat crime data report, New Haven had seen 22 homicides by this point last year.