by Thomas Breen
Neighborhood top cop Sgt. Jonathan Lambe (right).
The late Ichon Ringwood (left).
Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers stood alongside Elder Sean Gardner on the third floor of police headquarters on Thursday afternoon to mark the arrest of the man who allegedly killed Gardner’s brother — and to mourn a recent spate of deadly violence in the West River neighborhood.
Walker-Myers and Gardner joined Police Chief David Zannelli, Mayor Justin Elicker, Capt. Nicholas Marcucio, and neighborhood top cop Sgt. Jonathan Lambe, among others, for a press conference about the Aug. 31 arrest of a 25-year-old New Havener for the Aug. 20 murder of Gardner’s 42-year-old brother, Ichon Ringwood.
Ringwood was shot and killed at around 10:30 a.m. that Thursday near the Berger Apartments on Derby Avenue following a dispute and an apparent attempted robbery. Police are not sure if Ringwood was the intended target of the shooting, though Zannelli said that the suspect and Ringwood were familiar with one another.
The suspect, who was on probation at the time of the shooting, has been charged with murder, felony murder, attempt to commit robbery in the first degree, carrying a pistol without a permit, and criminal possession of a firearm. He hasn’t yet entered pleas to those charges, and is being held on a $2 million bond.
Ringwood’s murder was one of four shooting deaths to take place in the West River neighborhood in August — 19-year-old New Havener Chavis Goldson and 25-year-old West Havener Lorenzo Foreman were shot and killed on Judson Avenue on Aug. 3, and 21-year-old New Havener Garnet Beckford died after being shot on Judson Avenue on Aug. 27.
“As you all know, August was a very challenging month for the New Haven Police Department and the city, especially for the Dwight/Kensington area,” Zannelli said.
Gardner described Ringwood as “the baby of the family.” He said that their family “is reeling right now because of his loss.”
“New Haven has gotten significantly badder by senseless gun violence,” Gardner continued, “and it has to stop.”
Gardner said that he and Ringwood “were sometimes inseparable, and I’m going to miss him.”
Walker-Myers, who represents West River’s Ward 23 in addition to being the president of the Board of Alders, said that she was present at Thursday’s presser “because I represent my neighborhood and any gun violence in the city, whether it’s my neighborhood or not, I’m affected by it.
“I live here. I grew up here. I care about what happens here.”
Walker-Myers described the amount of deadly gun violence in her neighborhood last month as “not normal.” She spoke about the work that the neighborhood has done to reduce violence “by occupying the space. After August happened, we need to understand that, although we changed a lot of things, there’s still more work to be done here.”
Walker-Myers stressed that she knows firsthand what it’s like to lose a loved one to gun violence. “Every time somebody passes away in this city, I feel it.” She said she knows that, when the calls stop after the initial flurry of activity following a homicide, “that midnight hour gets dark.”
Zannelli and Elicker stressed during Thursday’s presser that technology — and in particular city-owned and private cameras — played a key role in helping police make an arrest as quickly as they did.
Zannelli said that video footage from six different cameras — city-owned Milestone cameras, Ring cameras, private business cameras — helped lead Det. Jeremy Cordero’s investigation. The cameras allow police to “sequence witnesses, cars, suspects,” Zannelli said. “We’re able to do that before a crime occurs and after to make sure we’re identifying the correct people.”
Police Chief David Zannelli (right) with Rev. John Lewis and Mayor Justin Elicker.
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