Melissa Bailey Photo
(Updated: 1:19 p.m.) New Haven’s latest murder victim was shot in an attempted hold-up by a 17-year-old who’d been on probation for a previous robbery, police said.
Police arrested the 17-year-old during a SWAT raid in West Rock at 4 a.m. Thursday.
They accused him of shooting a 29-year-old man to death just hours earlier.
The arrest took place at a home on Lodge Street. Police are still looking for a second man suspected of being an accomplice in the crime, according to Assistant Chief Archie Generoso (pictured above with the homicide victim’s family).
Officials gathered Thursday morning at police headquarters to announce the swift arrest. Over 40 detectives, plus patrol cops and supervisors, responded to the call of duty overnight, many of them pulling all-nighters working back-to-back homicides, Generoso said. On Wednesday, a store clerk was murdered at an Orchard Street market.
Family members of the latest victim, Lonnie Starr, joined police at the press conference.
“Today, two mothers will be grieving,” said Chief Dean Esserman said. “This good mother had to lose her son.”
“Violence will not be tolerated,” Esserman vowed. He congratulated cops on an all-hands-on-deck effort to bring justice to the triggerman.
Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman:
First, the murder.
Police responded at 6:37 p.m. to the Dunkin’ Donuts at 295 Blake St. on report of a person who’d been shot.
They found Lonnie Starr, a 29-year-old New Haven man, of Thorn Street. He was suffering from a single gunshot wound. He was taken by ambulance to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police believe Starr was shot in the area of Level and Lodge Streets in West Rock. Two men shot him during an attempted robbery, according to Sgt. Al Vazquez, who heads the department’s major crimes division.
The victim drove himself and a male passenger away from the scene in a 1997 Buick Oldsmobile 88, Vazquez said. The driver made it as far as the Dunkin’ Donuts before pulling into the parking lot.
According to the state’s judicial database, Starr pleaded guilty to a third-degree assault charge in 2008 and a felony narcotics charge in 2009.
Patrol officers and detectives worked the case through the night. They developed information on a suspect back on Lodge Street.
They went to search a home there at 4 a.m. “The home was searched without incident and the suspect was taken into custody. A gun was recovered at the home,” Hartman wrote.
Because the alleged shooter is 17 years old, his name is not being publicly released.
Sgt. Tony Reyes (pictured) said police surrounded the Lodge Street home where the suspect lives and called on a megaphone for all occupants of the house to emerge. They did so without incident, he said.
The suspect is being charged with murder and numerous weapons charges, Reyes said.
The arrestee recently completed probation for a previous robbery conviction, according to Vazquez.
Cops also served a second warrant Thursday in search of a second person who may have had a connection to the crime, Generoso said. Cops searched an undisclosed location and did not find the person.
Generoso said another arrest may be forthcoming.
“We believe that the arrestee had an accomplice,” Generoso said. “Right now, we’re seeking another person” in connection with the crime.
The arrestee was sent to juvenile detention; his case will be removed to adult court, where he will be arraigned in private because of his age, Generoso said.
Esserman said he called in all members of the detective division as well as all members of the department’s joint state and federal task forces to work the case through the night. On Thursday, he gestured to a line of top cops who worked the murder.
“None of them went home to their families last night,” Esserman said.
He vowed to keep a “relentless” focus on gun violence. “Justice will be swift and certain.”