Paul Bass Photo
Detectives at the scene of the 2021 Winthrop Avenue double murder.
New Haven ended 2022 with a run of fatal shootings, but still with significantly fewer overall than over the past two years.
The city reported 14 homicides in 2022, compared to 26 in 2021 and 20 in 2020.
Three of those homicides occurred in December; and a fourth person, Kenneth Cloud, 46, of Seymour, died last week of wounds suffered in a Sept. 16 shooting on Atwater Street.
The year’s final homicide victim was a 27-year-old Hartford man named Ernie Negroni-Feliciano. He was shot on Saltonstall Avenue at around 10:22 p.m. on Friday evening, then died in the hospital the next day, according to police spokesperson Scott Shumway. (The first homicide of 2023 took place on Sunday.)
Police Chief Karl Jacobson said it appears that the recent homicides were targeted, not random.
Even with the recent spate of violence, homicides dropped 46 percent in 2022 compared to 2021. The number of nonfatal shootings remained steady at 110. The number of reported shots fired dropped 10 percent, from 342 to 306.
Click here to read, or below to watch, a recent interview with Chief Jacobson about violence reduction efforts and the 2022 dip.
In other recent policing news:
• Police arrested a 38-year-old man for allegedly shooting Alfreda Youmans and Jeffrey Dotson to death in a Winthrop Avenue apartment on Jan. 10, 2021, that year’s first homicide.
• A New Haven man named Marcus Rivera pleaded guilty to charges related to his 2019 attempted shooting of New Haven Police Detective Francisco Sanchez. Rivera faces up to 10 years behind bars under the terms of his plea deal.
• A city officer named Lindsey Nesto was arrested and charged with second-degree breach of peace for allegedly “using inappropriate language” in an argument with “three juveniles outside a Wallingford home.”
• A team of officers led by top Downtown cop Lt. Brendan Borer tracked down a man accused of at least six separate cases of apartment building and grocery story robberies and package thefts.