NEW HAVEN —
A 40-year-old man apparently picked the wrong person to try to rob at knife point Monday and ended up at the hospital with two gunshot wounds to the chest, police said.
As the alleged would-be robber lay wounded, his intended victim called 911.
The incident occurred shortly after 1 p.m. on Wooster Place just outside Columbus Park in the Wooster Square neighborhood.
RELATED STORY: Would-be robber shot in Wooster Square (video)
The shooting victim, tentatively identified by a source as Hector Santiago, 40, is expected to recover, and was speaking to police. The shooter, who police said is 65 and from out of town, waited at the scene for officers to arrive and was brought to police headquarters to be interviewed. He was later released, police said.
Police recovered a small knife at the scene, not far from the shooter’s discarded umbrella.
Cecilia Dougherty, who lives on Chapel Street facing the park, heard gunshots.
“I thought, ‘No, that can’t be.’ Then 30 seconds later I see all the police,” she said. “It’s pretty scary in the middle of the day in Wooster Square.”
There was some reassurance that the victim apparently was defending himself.
Even so, she added,
“If you’re walking your dog, for example, you don’t expect the person next to you to have a gun — for any reason.”
The park is a popular destination and often is teeming with dogs and their socializing owners in the afternoon and evening. It’s the city’s Little Italy section, known for its iconic pizza and Italian cuisine.
Lt. Rebecca Sweeney-Burns, the police supervisor for the area, said preliminary indications were that the man was shot when he attempted to rob the shooter.
Police spokesman Joe Avery added that the man brandished a knife, and that’s when his intended victim pulled out a gun. The shooter is licensed to carry the weapon, police said, and there was no information on any charges.
It all occurred across the street from the Polly McCabe Center, a transitional high school, and just yards from St. Michael’s Church, which has overlooked the 4-acre park for 150 years.
Clinicians from the Yale Child Study Center responded to offer counseling to any Polly McCabe students who might have seen the incident. One teacher did, and was taken to police headquarters to give a statement.
With Wooster Place closed, neighbor Jane Lederer, who is active with the block watch, surveyed the crime scene while walking her dog.
“It was astonishing how huge of a police response there was,” she said, estimating that as many as two dozen marked and unmarked vehicles responded to the scene.
Rob Deffendall, who lives on nearby Greene Street, said he heard shots, but it initially didn’t register with him that they could be gunfire.
Lederer and Deffendall said the area isn’t entirely insulated from crime, but nothing of Monday’s magnitude. There are periodic muggings and car break-ins, both said.
Deffendall said some residents have been talking about creating an informal night patrol, when flashlight carrying block watch members would keep an eye on the neighborhood.
“At night, you have to watch yourself, but
during the day, this is the last thing you expect,” he said.
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