Murdered Student May Have Been ​“Targeted”

The murder of a 26-year-old Yale forestry graduate student near his new fiancee’s home in the Goatville section of East Rock appears not to have been a ​“random” act, New Haven’s police chief revealed Monday.

The revelation came at a press conference held on the steps outside police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.

The press conference concerned a recent spate of crimes this past week, including Saturday night’s shooting death of the graduate student, Kevin Jiang, near the intersection of Lawrence and Nicoll streets.

Police have developed leads in that investigation. With the killer still at large, they are keeping most information out of the public eye for now.

But Monday’s remarks made it clear that the killing wasn’t what some New Haveners originally assumed: a random act involving strangers.

“We are looking into whether or not Mr. Jiang was targeted. We have developed information that the incident may not have been a random act, that he was in effect targeted,” New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said. “… This was not a drive-by. This was much more up close.”

“We have very specific leads we are exploring.”

Jiang suffered ​“multiple gunshot wounds,” Reyes added.

It’s too early to report a motive in the shooting, Reyes said. He added that neighbors ​“reported seeing much during that day” and have proved helpful in piecing together what happened.

“We do not feel the community is at risk for future violence” connected to this murder, he added. ​“Anything further I provide would be compromising to the investigation.”

Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins, Mayor Justin Elicker and Yale President Peter Salovey joined top cops at the press conference.

Salovey spoke of Jiang’s volunteer work, cooking for the homeless, mentoring young people, looking into the levels of mercury in fish in the Quinnipiac River.

“He wanted to use his education to make a positive difference in the world,” Salovey said.

(Click here to donate to a GoFundMe account set up to help Jiang’s mother pay funeral expenses.)

The 8:30 p.m. Saturday night murder was the city’s sixth homicide of 2021.It occurred on Lawrence between Nicoll and Nash streets.

Neighbors heard at least seven shots ring out. (See more below for neighbors’ accounts of what happened.)

Emergency responders arrived to find Kevin Jiang lying in the road. They were unable to revive him.

Jiang, who attended Yale’s School of the Environment, lived in West Haven. A week ago he and his fiancee, Zion Perry, got engaged, according to her Facebook page. Perry lives near the murder scene. Perry moved to New Haven after completing her undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to enroll in a graduate program at Yale.

Jiang was a military veteran, a tank operator with the Army and (at the time of his death) a member of the Army National Guard, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He was found near his Prius, which had rear-ended damage. Investigators are looking into the possibility that a crash preceded his murder.

Police have leads on the possible shooter’s vehicle. More details are expected to be released at a Monday morning press conference.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the New Haven Police Department at 203 – 946-6304. Callers may remain anonymous.

The fiancée, who lives in Goatville, declined comment Sunday, as did Jiang’s mother.

Jiang was an active volunteer at Trinity Baptist Church on State Street, as was his mother, who had moved east from the Seattle area to live with her son when he started grad school.

“He just showed up” one Sunday in 2019 and volunteered to help with the weekly ​“fellowship hour” after worship services, said Kirsten Walker, who as fellowship coordinator for the congregation arranged the event. Jiang subsequently showed up each week with cookies or other food and helped serve parishioners at the hour until the pandemic hit, Walker said. His mom subsequently helped regularly as well.

“He was cheerful, energetic, joyful. He was loving life,” Walker said.

Trinity Baptist Pastor Greg Hendrickson had agreed earlier in the week to officiate at Jiang’s wedding.

“Now, we will be officiating his funeral instead,” Hendrickson said. ​“As a community, we are grieving deeply right now. But Kevin lived by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his promise of the resurrection from the dead. Though his earthly life was cut short, he used the time that he had on earth to the fullest. His example inspires us to do the same.”

Yale President Salovey sent this message Sunday to the university community. Mayor Elicker, who visited the scene Saturday night, told the Independent that the murder is a reminder that ​“we’re all connected” in New Haven.

The shooting death marks the sixth homicide in the city so far this year.

Last month, Alfreda Youmans, 50, and Jeffrey Dotson, 42, were found dead by the police inside a Winthrop Avenue apartment, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, 32, was shot and killed in Fair Haven, Marquis Winfrey, 31, was shot and killed in Newhallville, and Joseph Vincent Mattei, 28, was shot and killed in the Hill.

The last Yale graduate student to be murdered in New Haven was Annie Le, in 2009

Before that, undergraduate Suzanne Jovin was murdered in East Rock in 1998. That murder has never been solved.

Neighbors: Fireworks? Or Gunshots?

Max Antonucci (pictured) was in his living room near the corner of Foster Street and Lawrence Street at around 8:30 p.m. Saturday when he heard what sounded like fireworks.

First one. A pause. Followed by ​“a bunch more,” five or six. A few minutes later, the police arrived.

Antonucci lives in a second-story apartment. He didn’t see the violence take place on the street, nor did he see much of the aftermath, beyond the arrival of a fire engine and police cars with lights flashing blocking Lawrence Street between Foster and Nash Streets until roughly 4:30 Sunday morning.

But, like many of his neighbors, he heard the shots loud and clear.

“Maybe they were fireworks, I thought, trying to be optimistic,” he recalled during a Sunday morning interview. By the time the cops had arrived, he and a neighbor had come to a different conclusion. ​“I think it was gunshots.”

Antonucci’s neighbor, Mackenzie Coden, also heard the shots and saw the emergency response vehicles show up Saturday night.

She said that she’s also a Yale graduate school student, in immunobiology. She didn’t know Jiang. She said the fact that a ​“fellow Yale grad student” was shot to death right near her home struck her as almost too painful to take in.

“I don’t think there’s words to describe,” she said.

Two roommates who live near the corner of Lawrence and Nicoll Streets (who asked to not be photographed or named for this article) said they too heard the shots ring out just outside their home at around 8:30 p.m.

“We couldn’t see anything,” one said. ​“But we heard the shots. Like five or six. They sound so close.”

“And they didn’t sound like fireworks,” the other roommate said.

Within 15 minutes of the shooting, the first roommate said, police had arrived and closed off the street. ​“I passed by there at around 8:10,” they recalled with a shudder.

William Bramen (pictured) said he too heard the shots, but didn’t see anything in the darkness. He’s currently staying with a friend at a rooming house at the corner of Nash Street and Lawrence Street. He said he heard more details about the shooting and the police blocking off the street from a friend who lives around the corner on Lawrence Street.

“It’s getting stressful for everybody,” he said about the citywide — and nationwide — spike in violence.

He said he used to live in an apartment on Norton Street in the Edgewood neighborhood. ​“I’ve gone through a lot of this before,” he said about dealing with shootings nearby.

Violence definitely seems like it’s getting worse in New Haven as of late, he said. ​“Just a fact of the virus,” he added about the apparent connection between more violence and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Corey Saulsbury (pictured) is the pastor of St. James Unity Holiness Church at the corner of Lawrence Street and Foster Street. He had just arrived at church in preparation for Sunday morning’s service when this reporter let him know about Saturday night’s shooting nearby.

“That’s horrible,” he said. ​“We’re definitely sending our prayers to the family and to the community.” He said he has attended neighborhood meetings where East Rock and Goatville residents have spoken up to police about an increase in crime. But this is the first time ​“in a while” that he can remember a homicide taking place in the area.

“You don’t want to hear anything like that, especially considering the climate of our city, the climate of our state, and the climate of our nation.”

He participates in a clergy association that met earlier this very week to talk about the increase in shootings in New Haven. He missed the meeting because of work, but recognizes how big of a problem street violence has become.

“We definitely want to, as a clergy member, keep this person in prayer, keep the family in prayer, and keep our city in prayer.”

While Antonucci didn’t see the shooting or much else going on in the street Saturday night beyond the flashes of cop car lights, he did see one person arrive to talk to police at around 9:30: Mayor Justin Elicker.

Elicker confirmed for the Independent Sunday morning that he had visited the scene the night before to talk with the police and get an update on the shooting and investigation.

“I try to go out whenever there’s a major incident, as much as I can,” he said.

“The events this weekend are particularly concerning because there were three incidents where innocent individuals were impacted by violence.” Those include the teacher who was carjacked at Roberto Clemente Academy on Friday, the shooting of Asst. Superintendent Paul Whyte’s house in Beaver Hills Friday night, and now ​“the tragic events” that happened with Jiang.

“We’ve been very concerned about the increase in violence,” he continued. ​“This underscores just how important it is for our city to get this under control.”

Elicker was asked how he feels about this latest shooting death, considering that he too lives in the East Rock neighborhood and graduated from the Yale Forestry School (now known as the Yale School of the Environment).

“I’ve been to the wakes of most of the people that have died, victims of gun violence,” since taking office at the start of last year, he responded. ​“There’s so much pain in the community.”

He said he was recently on the phone with the dean of the Yale School of the Environment. ​“I’m sure that this will be a very, very difficult time for many of the students and staff and faculty at the school,” he said. ​“I think that, too often, violence feels distant from some people. This is a reminder that we’re all connected.”