New Homicide Squad Finds Its Rhythm

Four New Haven detectives woke to the ringing of their phones at 2:30 a.m. one recent Saturday. They saw that Bertram Ettienne was calling.

They knew that meant they would be up for a while.

Sgt. Ettienne is their boss, the new head of a newly staffed homicide unit in the police department’s detective division.

A man named had been shot to death. Any time someone gets killed in New Haven, no matter what time of night, the entire homicide squad swings into action to grab leads while they’re fresh and plot their next moves.

So the unit’s four members — David Zaweski, Paul D’Andrea, Kealyn Nivakoff, and Steven Cunningham — have grown used to the calls. Even though a couple of the detectives started working homicides only this past summer.

After just four months with the squad, Nivakoff knows not to tell her daughter she has made weekend plans. Just in case Ettienne calls. ​“I don’t want to let her down,” she said.

Ettienne himself just took over the unit in July. His kids already have started asking him, ​“Is there another homicide unit?”

There’s not. In fact, not all departments have dedicated homicide units. New Haven didn’t have one until 2011, when the department created the squad in the face of the biggest murder spike in two decades.

The recent wave of retirements and resignations in the department (perhaps stemmed now thanks to a new union contract) created openings — and opportunity — in the homicide unit. It is a prized assignment, among the most challenging, and potentially rewarding, jobs in the department. So despite the long, unpredictable hours, despite intense pressure to solve high-profile cases or produce results for bereft family members, the detectives sought out the positions. Over the past four months, cloistered in a room inside the third-floor detective division at police headquarters, the detectives have dived into the task of working as a team.

Yanks vs. Sox

By the time they answered Ettienne’s call, they already had a routine down pat.

Ettienne first heard about the homicide from a shift commander on the scene. Ettienne immediately called all four members of his homicide unit; even though only one leads an investigation, all three others end up participating, whether double-teaming witness interviews or sharing tips.

The full team arranged to begin by meeting up at headquarters to plot strategy.

Though he took over the unit only four months ago, Ettienne is no stranger to homicide investigations. He has worked on various homicide cases since becoming a detective in 2008, including one in which he caught up with a murder suspect while polishing off a plate of bacalao with yuca in a favorite Dominican restaurant on Washington Avenue.

Ettienne also knows what it’s like for family members who lose a loved one to murder. He learned about that in 2010, when a man involved in a dispute sprayed bullets outside a Hartford bar — one of which struck and killed Ettienne’s sister Jeanna. Before that, Ettienne saw the pain families endure. Now he felt it himself. ​“You never know what they’re going through until you go through it,” he recalled. ​“You don’t want anyone to go through that”

At 1 Union Ave., the team decided that Detective Cunningham would take the lead on the latest homicide. Often the detectives ease the pressure by joking. Nivakoff and Cunningham — members of the same academy class, and, it turned out, children of cops who also attended the same academy class — tease each other like siblings. They rib Ettienne for always suggesting they lunch at the Greek Olive. But when a call comes in, especially in the middle of night like on this case, the mood is sober and dead serious. ​“Game face, locked in,” as D’Andrea put it.

Cunningham and D’Andrea headed to Yale-New Haven Hospital to speak with patrol officers and the family of the victim.

Ettienne, who described his role as more of a ​“coach” than a ​“boss,” headed to the scene along with Zaweski and Nivakoff. Ettienne’s job was to check out the crime scene, decide if it needed to be expanded or shrunk, ensure his unit was working with patrol and other officers involved.

Zaweski and Nivakoff hit the doors to interview potential witnesses.

Zaweski is the unit’s veteran; he’s been working homicides since 2009. Nivakoff looks to him for tips although from her previous experience in the detective division, she already knew about the need not to push people too hard on the doors.

All the unit’s members spoke of the need to avoid rushing a case, despite the public’s and families’ desire for quick results. They look for unspoken clues when people answer the door: Sometimes it’s clear the person wants to talk, but not right then, in public view. So, as usual, the detectives handed everyone their cards that night.

Other times, a witness will call off a scheduled interview. He’ll ask to wait a week. It pays to wait rather than force them — solving any case, especially a homicide, can involve months of methodical fact-gathering that needs to stand up in the face of rigorous challenges in court.

“Slow it down,” Ettienne advises his detectives. ​“You only have the opportunity to get it right one time.”

“We don’t want to wait forever,” Zaweski noted, ​“but you don’t want them getting angry with you” and clamming up. Similarly, he’ll strike a balance between following up with visits to important potential witnesses and avoiding as coming across as harassing them.

Sometimes cases come together much faster. Earlier this year, for instance, Zaweski and D’Andrea obtained a confession from a suburban pizzeria owner who shot to death a friend-turned-drug dealer in the Hill.

But mostly the detectives spoke of the importance of not rushing toward an arrest based on witness statements, either. Other evidence needs to be gathered to back it up. And stories can change — as Zaweski learned when one witness claimed to identify the shooter in the 2014 murder of Durrell Law on Eastern Street. It eventually turned out the witness was involved in the shooting, and was the one the cops arrested.

Time is the detectives’ friend. Often strong evidence will emerge when participants get arrested for other crimes. Ettienne saw that firsthand when unrelated arrests provided information to help him obtain a warrant in a 2013 murder, five years after it occurred.

Time is not necessarily the friend of grieving families. They crave closure, while the detectives toil away on the methodical work of amassing solid evidence.

To a person, the detectives agreed that that tension can be the hardest part of their job. They bond with the families, and want to deliver results.

“You become part of the family,” Ettienne said.

“You feel their pain,” D’Andrea said. ​“They want justice. It weighs on you. They don’t let you forget they want justice; in your heart, you want to tell them all the details,” but can’t.

“These are very long and drawn-out investigations. You can only share limited information” with the families, Nivakoff said. ​“If I was in their shoes, I would [want] all the information” about progress in a case. ​“You try to be as genuine as possible” in counseling patience and assuring relatives that she’s working a case hard.

“We don’t forget about a case, even if it’s been years,” Zaweski said.

Working It

Zaweski and Nivakoff completed two blocks of pre-dawn door-knocking near the homicide before reuniting with the rest of the team at 1 Union Ave. They spent a few more hours working the case, went home to nap, then returned for another full shift. That would be the routine for the next few days.

Since then they’ve made steady progress on the case, Cunningham reported. He’s been pleased with information members of the public have called and emailed in via the tip line; such community help is crucial in many cases. (Tip line number: 1 – 866-888-TIPS(8477) or 203 – 946-6296. Email address .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).)

It may be a while until they find out who committed the murder. Until then, they can’t reveal what they know so far. But they’re determined to get there.