NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTIC) – The Mayors and Police Chiefs of New Haven and Hamden met for a press conference Wednesday to discuss the recent officer involved shooting that injured a 22-year old woman.
State Police are currently investigating the incident where a Hamden officer and a Yale University officer shot at the driver of a car who was suspected in an attempted robbery.
The woman shot was a passenger in the vehicle, which was described as a red Honda Civic. She was transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital for treatment for non-life threatening wounds and is reportedly in stable condition.
The incident occurred in New Haven in the area of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street, however, the officers were responding to an earlier attempted armed robbery of a newspaper delivery carrier in Hamden.
New Haven Police were not involved and did not arrive on scene until after the officers fired their weapons.
Residents are now demanding answers, such as, how and why were separate officers involved spanning across city lines and jurisdictions?
“This incident betrays police activity gone horribly wrong along the Hamden-New Haven line,” said New Haven Mayor Toni Harp. “Going forward, police activity that spills over into New Haven must be standardized and memorialized, so that while it is common and perfectly legal, it is also conducted in a manner that is consistent with the guidelines that apply to New Haven’s police personnel.”
To that end, Mayor Harp added she is currently working to create a cross-jurisdictional memorandum of understanding between both city’s police departments.
Mayor Leng also spoke about collaborating with New Haven because this issue – like many others – is a shared, community issue.
“I believe that Hamden and New Haven – and I can commit this certainly – are going to work more closely together and are committed to working more closely together,” said Mayor Leng. “The issues that are faced are not Hamden issues or New Haven issues, they are community issues and the more we can work together on them, the better we all are.”
Meanwhile New Haven Chief of Police Otoniel Reyes, stressed that while nothing can be done to change what happened during the incident, they can have a large measure of control on the actions taken moving forward.
“New Haven Police is committed to working closely with this administration, with this community, with our partners – not just in Hamden, but in every surrounding jurisdiction to improve the level of service we provide our communities,” said Chief Reyes. “This is an opportunity for all of this to do better. We in law enforcement welcome the oversight and welcome the accountability because we realize that we need to be held to a higher standard.”
He added he will be reaching out to all community leaders to engage in better policy and dialogue moving forward. Also, Mayor Leng said town leaders will start attending Police Community District Management Team meetings, which he says should have an immediate impact.
Connecticut State Police continue to investigate the incident and currently contain the body and dash-camera footage of the incident. City leaders will reconvene with State Police investigators on Friday and should have more information at that time.
One of the officers’ identity, however, was released, as Devin Eaton has been placed on administrative leave. Officer Eaton has been a Hamden Police Officer for nearly three years and has over four years of experience as a law enforcement officer.
The identity of the other officer from the Yale Police Department has not been released at this time.
Both officers in the incident have been placed on administrative leave.