Paul Bass Photo
Johnny Rodriguez (at left above), father of Tayna "Pookie" Rodriguez (pictured below), consoled by Officer Steve McMorris after Wednesday's press conference.
Danny Heredin was back standing alongside cops to issue a “stop the violence” appeal — and wondered aloud about whether the appeals themselves will ever stop.
Heredin spoke at a press conference at 1 Union Ave. held to discuss the arrest of a man charged with shooting dead 26-year-old Tayna Rodriguez on Saltonstall Avenue Sunday around 1 a.m.
The alleged shooter had called 911 to report that he had shot Rodriguez. He stayed on scene and said he had accidentally fired the shots at her during a dispute with two other men on the street.
Heredin is the uncle of Rodriguez’s mother. In what has become a police department ritual following homicide arrests (this is the ninth such arrest so far this year), top cops invited the victim’s family to attend the press conference and offer words.
Heredin was among the speakers at the press conference. He appealed for the shootings to end. He spoke of how three years ago he lost a nephew to street violence, in a stabbing in West Haven. He praised the police for making arrests in homicides and criticized the court system for leniency with criminals.
“The police do their job. They lock them up. The justice system lets them right out. But the court system lets them right back out,” Heredin said. “The court system has to stop being blind justice and start working.” Click on the above video to watch him address the press conference.
It turns out that Heredin joins officers at monthly “Project Safe Neighborhoods” call-ins of young men involved in street violence. He speaks of the 22 years he spent in prison for his role in the narcotics trade. He appeals to gangbangers to go straight, to avoid prison and spare families (like his) the pain of losing loved ones.
“I’m tired of coming in. It’s got to stop. We not trying to take justice into our hands. but sometimes if y’all not going to do it, what else can we do? Every month we do this Project Safe Neighborhoods, for what?”
The alleged shooter is being held on a $2 million bond on a murder charge in connection with Rodriguez’s killing.
Rodriguez got out of her car to try to stop the three men who were fighting on Saltonstall, Assistant Police Chief Bertram Ettienne (pictured above) said at the press conference. She was trying to stop the fight.
“She was trying to do the right thing,” and lost her life as a result, Ettienne said.
Rodriguez knew the men who were fighting. One of them was reportedly romantically involved with a woman with whom Rodriguez is close, and another is currently in a relationship with her. Rodriguez’s cousins said after the press conference that Rodriguez was the godmother of the woman’s baby, whom one of the men involved in the argument had come to Saltonstall to pick up.
Heredin and Rodriguez, the last two on the right, with family members at Wednesday's press conference.
Woman's Killer Gets 35 years
In a separate case, Superior Court Judge Elpedio N. Vitale has sentenced a 32-year-old Donna Triplett of West Haven to 35 years in prison for shooting her 29-year-old romantic partner, Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, to death in the back during an argument on Auburn Street in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood on March 16, 2021.