Cops Share Intelligence To Tackle Homicides

As John Velleca reviewed the police department’s progress on this year’s rash of homicides, his BlackBerry beeped. The message: A prison inmate had just come forward with new information on an unsolved 2007 murder.

The inmate was playing cards in the slammer. The only cards the inmates get these days come from decks with pictures of victims of major crimes and of missing persons, along with a message urging them to contact a tip line with information. The inmate pulled a card about the 2007 New Haven case and made the call. That information immediately made its way to the chief state’s attorney’s office, which then sent it right to Velleca’s BlackBerry.

As homicides continue toward the highest annual rate in the city’s history, and regular shootings continue plaguing some neighborhoods, top cops have been focusing on ways to spread solid information about suspects faster and more thoroughly among city investigators and the state and federal agents with whom they work.

Velleca, New Haven’s assistant police chief in charge of investigative services, spoke about that in his third-floor corner office at police headquarters Wednesday as he reviewed the status of investigations into the 16 fatal incidents with a total of 19 homicide victims so far this year.

The cops have made arrests or wrapped up investigations and are anticipating the issuance of warrants in the first five cases, with a total of eight victims.

Of the remaining homicides, cops have a warrant application pending in one case, are close to solving a bunch of others (in some cases waiting on the return of blood tests or a judge’s signature on a warrant), while some of the remaining are ​“wide open,” Velleca said.

The police have also either made arrests or pursued arrest warrants in in 2011 in five other ​“cold cases” from previous years (like this one).

One of the 2011 homicides had a quick resolution. When cops showed up at the scene of a woman’s murder in the Hill in February, they found her husband — who had a previous arrest for a similar crime — covered with blood.

“That was great,” and the cops did good work, Velleca noted. But in most cases it takes months or longer of persistent digging in the face of greater obstacles to get to the bottom of a homicide. Many of the homicides are drug-related, involve convicted felons, and occur either in remote areas or blocks where illegal activity ​“has become commonplace” and thus less remarkable to potential witnesses, he said.

Add to that long delays in obtaining results from the state’s evidence testing labs. And the fact that the force’s nine detectives are currently responsible for not only all of this year’s unsolved murders and ​“cold case” investigations from years past, but most of this year’s 76 shootings as well. (They get help from revolving five-member teams of patrol officers on 180-day training shifts.)

“It’s the same small group of people committing these [violent] crimes,” Velleca said. So the department has stepped up how it stays on top of information about that group.

Before he became assistant chief, Velleca was in charge of revamping the department’s narcotics unit in the wake of a scandal that partially involved the use of informants. The department started obtaining better information about people with the potential to commit violence, but it wasn’t always getting that information into the right hands — for instance, from drug investigators to a homicide detective who could benefit from knowing what kind of a car a suspect is driving.

Among the next steps: The department has convened a team to meet monthly to share that information. It scheduled its third meeting Thursday. The team includes New Haven cops, state investigators, Yale police, and people from the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms. They meet on the fourth floor of police headquarters.

The Department of Corrections also launched the prison playing cards idea late last year in conjunction with New Haven and other area police departments and the chief state’s attorney’s office.

And last week Chief Frank Limon assigned Sgt. Herb Johnson to head up a new unit at 1 Union Ave. to pull together intelligence data daily, analyze it, share it with other law enforcement agencies, and recommend how to use it on the street. (Johnson was previously the district manager in Fair Haven. Limon appointed Sgt. Anthony Zona to replace him there.)

“The goal is to establish a collaborative intelligence and information hub for the department and to share information internally and with our law enforcement partners and criminal justice agencies,” Limon said. ​“Information is useless if you don’t share it.”

“I love Fair Haven,” so it was hard to leave the district, but ​“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity” to lead the new intelligence-sharing effort, Johnson said Friday. ​“It’s part crime analysis — which we have — and taking all the intelligence that these uniformed officers and task forces” collect and putting it into more usable form for district managers and investigators to use.

Case By Case

Meanwhile, the day-to-day task of chipping away at the ballooning homicide caseload continues. Velleca offered the following update on investigations into 2011’s homicides so far.

• The Jan. 11 killing of William ​“Tuggy” Brown, 24, at 771 Dixwell Ave. in Newhallville. Police made an arrest.

• The Jan. 29 fatal double shooting of men on Front Street in Fair Haven. The police arrested one man who allegedly shot 26-year-old Marquis Sumler, but charged him with gun offenses, not murder; they concluded he fired in self-defense. (Rival groups of alleged drug dealers were arguing not about drugs, but about a quad, police said.) Velleca said the police have identified a suspect in the shooting of the second man, Michael Fernandez, 32; they expect to make the arrest soon.

• The stabbing of Joceyln Rodriguez, 29, on Auburn Street in the Hill. Police arrested her husband and charged him with killing her.

• Police expect to arrest two people in connection with the March 2 shooting of Michael Johnson on Button Street in the Hill.

• A man — currently in custody in a separate federal case — allegedly confessed to an informant wearing a wire that he set the March 9 fire that killed Wanda Roberson, 41; her 8‑year-old son Quashawn Roberson; and 21-year-old Jaqueeta Roberson on Wolcott Street in Fair Haven.

• Police concluded that Derrick Suggs, 52, was sadly simply caught in the crossfire when he was shot to death on West Street in the Hill on March 18. Beyond that, ​“we have nothing,” Velleca said. The one witness they’ve identified ​“has been uncooperative.”

• The police do have a suspect in the March 24 shooting death of 23-year-old bike enthusiast and straight-edge vegan punk rocker Mitchell Dubey on Bassett Street in Newhallville. They plan to issue a composite sketch of the suspect soon as the investigation continues.

• Detectives have prepared a warrant for the arrest of a suspect in the killing of Vashun Lewis, 18, on Goffe Street in Dixwell on April 16.

• No warrant has been drawn up, but police are ​“actively” working the investigation into the slaying of 23-year-old Issah Gantt at Church Street South on April 20; they have identified the person they think shot Gantt in the head.

• On the other hand, the investigation into an unrelated killing the same night on Valley Street in West Hills, of 35-year-old Kevin Lee, is ​“wide open,” without a suspect.

• They have a suspect as they continue probing the May 21st killing of Albert Jenkins, 40, on Middletown Avenue in the Bishop Woods area.

• No suspects in the curious case of Ryan Barnaby, 35, whose body was found by the Edgewood Park duck pond on May 23.

• Police do believe they know who shot Robert Lee McArthur, 29, four times in the chest as he sat in his green Honda Accord on Ella Grasso Boulevard and Kimberly Avenue in the Hill on June 7. They believe the shooting was drug-related.

• They’ve ​“narrowed a pool of suspects” in the June 24 shooting death of Donell Allick, 32, on Diamond Street in Beaver Hills. Investigators originally believed the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute, then moved away from that theory. Alick, a former Hillhouse High School basketball standout, had a history in the drug trade.

• ​“We have a suspect” and are ​“very close” to making an arrest in the shooting death of 17-year-old Travis Washington on Percival Street in Beaver Hills on June 25, Velleca said. That shooting is believed to have stemmed from a beef that was not drug-related.

• Police have also made headway on the case of John-Claude James, 26, who was killed on Howard Avenue on July 9. They’ve identified a suspect who’s already in jail, arrested a couple of weeks ago in connection with an unrelated 2010 shooting.

Of the 19 homicide victims so far this year, 17 have been black, one white, one Hispanic. Nine were felons.