Melissa Bailey Photo
Like the flames on the candles outside the spot where he was fatally shot early Thursday, “Fast Eddie” died “too quick.”
A friend of Edward Andrew Thompson made those remarks as she placed two tall candles at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Lloyd Street Thursday, on the spot where he was killed.
The shooting took place at 12:30 a.m. at 340 Grand Ave, near the intersection of Grand and Lloyd in Fair Haven, said police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman. Thompson, a 37-year-old who went by “Fast Eddie,” became the city’s 27th homicide victim so far this year.
The friend, who witnessed the murder, said Thompson was shot by a man in a car. She bought two candles, one white and one yellow, from the dollar store Thursday and set them up on the spot where he died.
“The guy came, he jumped out of the car, shot him and that was it,” said the witness, who declined to give her name. She wiped away her tears as she spoke near the makeshift memorial. “It was too quick.”
The woman said she was standing across the street at the time of the shooting. She saw a “young man” shoot her friend, but didn’t see his face, she said.
She said she called the ambulance when she saw Thompson go down.
“He’s been drinking. He’s internal bleeding. He’s already dying. Just let me do CPR,” she recalled saying at the scene. Then she saw her friend taken to the hospital.
She said she’s known Thompson for 10 years.
“He was a cool hustling kid — always helping everybody in the neighborhood out,” she said. She said he lived on Saltonstall Avenue with a long-term girlfriend. He did “side jobs” for a living.
Three men walked by the candles she had just put down and stopped to re-light the flames, which went out quickly in the wind.
One of the men agreed “Fast Eddie” was “a cool guy. He’d say hello to everybody.”
“But you don’t know what people do at nighttime,” he added.
State records show Fast Eddie did prison time for narcotics and burglary charges.
People close to the family said his drug use had led him astray.
Fast Eddie’s mother recently cut off contact with her son after he stole money from her, according to a family friend. The friend said Thompson’s mother was torn up over her son’s death, in part because she never had one last chance to say “I love you.”
She said he had two children, who were en route to New Haven from Florida Thursday.
Thompson’s mom was consoled Thursday at Lou’s Lounge near her home on Blatchley Avenue. The family has no money for Fast Eddie’s funeral. Friends stopped by to pay condolences at the bar, which is collecting money for the funeral.