by Thomas Breen The New Haven independent
City police have arrested a 17-year-old from Derby for allegedly shooting and killing an innocent bystander — 18-year-old Alexa Acevedo of Norwich — during a downtown Halloween night shootout that also injured three others between the ages of 18 and 21.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson, Asst. Chief David Zannelli, and Mayor Justin Elicker joined grieving members of Acevedo’s family as they announced that arrest during a Tuesday press conference at police headquarters at 1 Union Ave.
“This has left a big hole in my heart,” Acevedo’s sister Elena said with tears in her eyes. She said her sister was enrolled in college and was studying early childhood education. “My sister was a smart, beautiful woman who was just starting her life.”
“We will carry this pain forever,” Acevedo’s mom Ana Guzman Cruz said. “We will carry Alexa forever. We will never stop saying her name.”
The 17-year-old from Derby was arrested on Dec. 18. He has been charged with murder, criminal possession of a firearm, attempt to commit assault in the first degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree, and illegal discharge of a firearm. He has not yet entered pleas to any of those charges, and is currently being held on a $2 million bond.
A 19-year-old from East Hartford has also been arrested for allegedly firing first in the Halloween night shootout — the city’s second in as many years. Zannelli said that the East Hartford man has been charged with first-degree assault, possession of a pistol without a permit, and reckless endangerment, and is currently being held on a $750,000 bond.
Jacobson and Zannelli said that police have secured an arrest warrant for a third person involved in the Halloween night shooting. Because that warrant hasn’t been served yet, police declined to name the third suspect during Tuesday’s press conference.
The 17-year-old from Derby was arrested roughly a month after city police officers responded to Church Street and Center Street at around 2:34 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1, for a report of gunshots with multiple victims.
Police found three gunshot victims at the scene — Acevedo, who was fatally shot in the head; Acevedo’s 18-year-old friend from Northfield, Mass., who was shot in the neck; and a 21-year-old from Derby, who was shot in the leg. All three were transported by ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital. Roughly 20 minutes later, a fourth gunshot victim — a 19-year-old from East Hartford — arrived by private vehicle at Yale New Haven Hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to the buttocks.
Jacobson said that police were expecting between 3,000 and 5,000 people in downtown New Haven the night of Halloween. Instead, there were upwards of 7,000.
Jacobson and Zannelli stressed during Tuesday’s press conference that Acevedo and her friend were in no way connected to the alleged shooters from Derby and East Hartford.
The shooting appeared to stem from a “beef between these groups further up the street” that night. “Alexa was walking innocently down the street” and was killed in the crossfire.
A 12-page arrest warrant affidavit written by Det. Brandon Way on Dec. 18 — and obtained by the Independent on Wednesday — describes how police used video surveillance footage, witness interviews, cellphone records, and bullet analysis, among other detective work, to figure out what happened.
That warrant states that, as thousands of people descended on downtown New Haven to celebrate Halloween, a 19-year-old from East Hartford pulled out a gun and starting shooting at a group of eight young people from Derby soon after 2:30 a.m. at Church Street and Center Street.
That man from East Hartford fired a total of four times from a .40 caliber handgun, allegedly striking a 21-year-old from Derby in the leg.
In response, two people from Derby — including the 17-year-old who was ultimately arrested for murder — pulled out guns of their own and started firing back, shooting 14 9mm rounds in the direction of the East Hartford man.
One of those shots hit Acevedo’s friend.
Another fatally struck Acevedo.
Another injured the 19-year-old East Hartford man who had allegedly fired first.
Det. Way’s warrant states that the gun responsible for Acevedo’s murder — a Glock model 19 semi-automatic 9mm pistol — was ultimately found by police in the Derby 17-year-old’s bedroom.
“None of the shooters were from New Haven,” Elicker noted during Tuesday’s press conference. “They came to our community and wreaked havoc on our community.”
Jacobson said that there are “no clear gang affiliations” among the people who were shooting at each other that night.
Zannelli also said that the 17-year-old from Derby was on probation at the time of the shooting. He had been removed from GPS monitoring just the day prior.
The 19-year-old from East Hartford, meanwhile, was arrested by the Hartford Police Department on Dec. 21 on separate firearm-related charges. Police have also recovered the gun he allegedly used in the New Haven shooting.
The city’s most recent CompStat report states that, through Dec. 21, New Haven saw 16 homicides — including Acevedo’s — in 2025. By that same time in 2024, the city had seen 14 homicides. The CompStat report also states that there had been 42 non-fatal shootings, compared to 88 the year before; and there had been 96 confirmed shots fired, compared to 179 the year before.