Contributed photo
Police cars on Lewis Street after Thursday evening's shooting.
When seven gunshots popped from a car outside a Lewis Street rental home, the children next door wailed and trembled, and their parents scrambled to explain away the sounds as fireworks.
No one was injured during the drive-by shooting, during which, according to Capt. Rose Dell, “a parked, unoccupied vehicle was struck.”
That shooting itself took place at around 8:28 p.m. ShotSpotter detected seven shots fired.
“Lieutenant [Michael] Fumiatti, the District Manager of Fair Haven, is aware of this incident,” Dell wrote in an email statement, “and will deploy appropriate resources to reduce incidents of violent crime and increase public perception of safety.”
Video footage of Thursday's shooting.
In the aftermath of the Fair Haven shooting, residents of the block remain spooked.
Their alder, Sarah Miller, is calling for the city to not only investigate the shooting itself, but to crack down on what she believes to be the root cause of ongoing disruptive activity on the block: an alleged car repair and sale business operating illegally in the backyard of 8 Lewis St., which she believes to be at the center of drag racing, wrong-way speeding, and violence affecting the block.
“My three year old is totally shook up,” said Philip Boulanger, who lives in the house next door. The bullets peppered the side of his house, right by his daughter’s bedroom, at 8:30 p.m. The three-year-old “was up all night crying,” asking, “Why were the police there? Why people were doing fireworks? It’s not summer,” he said.
Across the street, Ariana Goldsman-Kosmides decided to no longer let her kids play at the park down the block, where her partner helps lead community clean-ups.
“When the shots were fired last night, they were still awake and they were scared,” she said of her four- and seven-year-old kids. “They asked what the loud noise was. We lied and told them it was maybe fireworks or something.”
Thomas Breen Photo
8 Lewis St., home to alleged illegal car repair biz.
Neighbor Andrea Harding, with pup Sidney.
Andrea Harding, who lives a few doors down from 8 Lewis and asked to be identified by her middle and last names, said she had just returned from visiting her sister in Hartford Thursday night when the shooting took place.
She didn’t know at the time that the pop pop pop she heard were the sounds of bullets. She assumed they were instead the backfire of a speeding car.
Only on Friday morning did she find out that those sounds were in fact gunfire. She learned about the shooting after talking with LCI neighborhood specialist Carmen Mendez.
“This was not new,” she said about Thursday night’s loud — and, she later learned, violent — bursts from down the block. Harding, who’s lived on Lewis Street for 12 years, said that the property in question has long been a nuisance in the area, with loud cars and occasional bursts of violence.
Boulanger, Goldsman-Kosmides, and Harding all said they weren’t surprised by the gunshots.
The Lewis Street triangle park.
Miller, the Fair Haven alder whose ward includes the side of the street on which 8 Lewis is located, said, “I’ve gotten pretty much nonstop complaints from folks up and down the street” about 8 Lewis St. and the neighboring house at 12 Lewis St.
According to Miller and some neighbors on the block, at least one illegal auto repair and used car shop is operating out of the backyard of those houses. Residents say that a dozen people congregate on a regular basis by the houses, and it can be difficult to tell who lives there and who’s a visitor. Some of the visitors or tenants frequently race up and down the block, going the wrong way on a one-way street, blasting loud music. Another shooting appeared to target one of the houses in the fall of 2020.
Boulanger said that he and some neighbors have met with Miller, Livable City Initiative officials, and police District Manager Fumiatti about the activity at those houses.
“My wife and I and many of the neighbors have a very high tolerance for letting people live their lives and do their thing,” Boulanger said. “Clearly the activities on the street are tied to bigger and more dangerous issues.”
Last May, according to Miller, someone nearly ran over a pedestrian while speeding in the wrong direction on the residential street. The city put up temporary traffic calming measures — some poles to narrow the road at the end of the block — which helped for a moment, but were knocked away by the winter time, likely by snow plows.
While the houses immediately neighboring 8 and 12 Lewis St. are owner-occupied, those two properties are investor owned. The house at 8 Lewis is owned by CMS REALTY LLC, a holding company controlled by local landlord Shneor Edelkopf, while the house at 12 Lewis is owned by an LLC affiliated with Mandy Management, one of the city’s largest property owners.
“They should know it’s happening and stop it,” Miller said of the landlords.
Beyond that, Miller is calling on the city to amp up traffic calming measures and shut down the car repair business on Lewis Street, which is located in an RM‑1 zone — a residential area where an auto shop is prohibited.
“We have to look at root causes,” she said. “I really don’t think that this would have been allowed to fester as long as it has in a wealthier section of the city.”
"At What Point Is Enough Enough?"
Thomas Breen file photo
Alder Miller, with fellow Fair Havener Kica Matos, in Sept. 2021 Grand plaza "occupation."
Cars line up outside 8 Lewis.
Miller argued that there’s an intrinsic disruption to having a car repair business in a residential area, with loud machine noises, music, and crowds posing a “quality-of-life issue” to neighbors.
Moreover, shutting down the business could help address the more urgent concerns about gun violence and dangerous traffic, she said. “It would remove a focal point for the activity.”
Miller and other Fair Haven community leaders employed a similar strategy — using commercial regulations to tackle a business at the center of unwanted local activity — to shut down the Grand Cafe, a legally-operating bar that saw persistent violence, in the fall of 2021. Then, neighbors made music and danced, played board games and held up signs, all outside the bar in protest of the violence. They convinced the state’s liquor control commission to deny the business a renewed liquor license, a decision that eventually led to the bar’s closure.
Neither the city nor Edelkopf — who owns the house that was shot at Thursday night and that is the site of the alleged illegal auto repair business — responded to requests for comment in time for this article.
In the meantime, residents are adjusting the way they relate to a once-quiet block with an otherwise close and active community.
“After what happened last night, I am not going to bring my children to that park until things are resolved,” said Goldsman-Kosmides.
“It feels like Lewis Street is slipping away,” said Boulanger. “At what point is enough enough?”
Mayor's Update: Investigation, Traffic Calming To Come
Mayor Justin Elicker reached out to the Independent on Monday with the following comment:
“Multiple city departments have been working to address the public safety and traffic safety concerns that have been raised about this property to ensure we’re doing everything we can to keep residents safe.
I spoke with the family next door on Friday and, while thankfully everyone was safe, it’s understandably terrifying for a shooting to take place near your home, especially when you have a young child there. The police department and the shooting task force are actively investigating the incident and reviewing video surveillance footage for potential leads.
A zoning inspection of 8 Lewis Street was done in February and, at that time, zoning inspectors were not able to determine if any activities at the home were commercial in nature, and we’re following up with the Connecticut State Department of Motor Vehicles for their assistance to assess potential enforcement actions.
Last year, the City Department of Transportation installed temporary curb extensions and delineators to help address the traffic safety concerns on the block. More reliable, long-term delineators are scheduled to be installed in the coming weeks and other traffic calming measures are being explored as well.”
While the neighbors blame the landlords, they also vote for Hartford representatives who want criminals out of jail and in our communities, and who want to make it as difficult as possible for landlords to evict tenants. Yes, an action could be brought for nuisance or serious nuisance, but the landlord would need to present evidence. Are the neighbors willing to take a day off of work to testify in court? Are they willing to risk retribution from the tenants for their testimony?