19-year-old suspect in custody after shooting at Connecticut mall leaves 5 people injured
A suspect was taken into custody in a shooting at a Waterbury, Connecticut, mall that left five people wounded, police said.
Police responded to the Brass Mill Center Mall at about 4:43 p.m. Tuesday after reports of shots being fired. When officers arrived, they located five victims with gunshot wounds.
The suspected gunman has been identified as Tajuan Washington, 19, of Waterbury, Waterbury Police Department Chief Fernando Spagnolo said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
Washington is being held on $2 million bond and was charged with five counts of first-degree assault and "a number of weapons violation charges," according to police.
The investigation is ongoing. Washington was scheduled to appear in court later Wednesday morning.
Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski said Wednesday that three of the five victims had been released from the hospital. Two remained hospitalized. The most seriously injured victim was struck in the spine, but she "now has feeling in her lower extremities" and "hopefully she does not find herself paralyzed."
At the news conference, Pernerewski encouraged the public to return to the mall, saying the shooting was not a random act of violence and involved "two young men who knew each other, had a history, a past."
"They got into a beef here," he said. "The perpetrator, instead of having what would have at one time been a fist fight, but because he was armed, came out with a pistol, shot the guy he was having a problem with and the four women who were with him as well."
The mall has been searched and secured and "there's nothing to worry about here," he said, adding the city was "obviously very shaken, but we're not broken," the mayor added.
"Within minutes, the state's largest police force, the Connecticut State Police, was on scene assisting the Waterbury Police Department," Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Ronnell Higgins told reporters. "That collaboration and cooperation isn't just something that happens in emergencies. That is something that happens regularly here in the city of Waterbury between the state and local and federal law enforcement officials.
"Gun violence is not something we will ever accept. It is not OK to come to a mall and then find yourself a victim of gun violence. It is not OK for someone to come here to work and then find themselves hiding, sheltering in place."
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said of Waterbury, "This is great city, and it is a city that is safe and getting safer."
"This is a terrible tragedy. Hearts and prayers go out to those that were hit, hit hard. I think they're all going to be OK, fingers crossed. Prayers out there," the governor said, crediting the Waterbury police for getting to arriving within three minutes.
"This type of crime is just shocking to me," Lamont said. "A lot of this crime, it maybe is one-off, but they know each other. This is not random acts of violence. This started out with some sort of a beef, some sort of an argument. And rather than ending up with a fisticuff, someone pulls out a semiautomatic and shoots seven rounds and badly wounds five people."
The governor said work needs to be done in the community to root out "sources of friction," but he told the public, "I want you back in this mall."
Waterbury police announced in a Facebook post late Tuesday that "detectives have identified a person of interest, and he is in police custody at this time."
Spagnolo told reporters Tuesday that none of the victims were fatally wounded, and all of them were transported and treated at area hospitals.
"We do not believe this was a random act of violence," Spagnolo said Tuesday. "We believe this started as a conflict and it escalated. We do know that there was one gunman at this time [whom] we've identified. That gunman was armed with a semi-automatic pistol."
The chief also said evidence was recovered that helped to identify the type of weapon used and "hopefully" the shooter, through various investigative means and forensic technology.
State Police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are assisting police with the investigation, which includes the collection of video and digital evidence.
"This is going to be a very lengthy and ongoing and active investigation," Spagnolo said.
He also said there is no danger to the public, though he advised anyone to report anything suspicious to the police.
Lamont called the shooting "tragic" in a post on X.
"This afternoon there was a tragic mass shooting at the Bass Mill Center in Waterbury, a place where everyone should feel safe. We are grateful to law enforcement, who acted swiftly," the governor wrote. "Details are still forthcoming, but the @CT_STATE_POLICE will be assisting @WaterburyPD with the investigation. Our hearts break for the Waterbury community, the victims, and their families who have been impacted by this incident."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
26 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Jury sees more sex videos as prosecutors wind down case against Sean 'Diddy' Combs
NEW YORK — The jury at Sean 'Diddy' Combs ' sex trafficking trial viewed more video recordings on Monday of the sex marathons that have played a prominent role in a prosecution that was likely to rest by Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey sometimes referred to the mostly 1- or 2-minute clips filmed by the music mogul as 'explicit' videos, a signal for jurors to put on headsets that enabled them to hear and view the recordings without them being heard or seen by spectators in the Manhattan courtroom. Prosecutors have cited the drug-fueled multi-day events as evidence of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges, saying Combs relied on employees, associates and his business accounts to fly male sex workers to Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, where his staff set up hotel rooms for the encounters and cleaned up afterward. Last week, prosecutors showed jurors about 2 minutes of the footage from 2012 and 2014 involving Combs' then-girlfriend Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, a male sex worker and Combs. Cassie earlier testified that she participated in hundreds of the 'freak-off' events. She and Combs were in a relationship from 2007 until 2018. Cassie sued Combs in 2023 alleging years of abuse. He settled within hours, and dozens of similar lawsuits followed. The Associated Press doesn't generally identify people who say they are victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has done. Defense lawyers last week showed the jury about 18 minutes of video clips from the sex performances involving Cassie after a lawyer said in opening statements that the videos prove sexual activity was consensual and not evidence of a crime. On Monday, prosecutors aired nearly 20 minutes of recordings from 2021 and 2022 of a single mother who was identified only by the pseudonym 'Jane,' male sex workers and Combs. Jane testified for six days earlier in the trial that she was romantically involved with Combs from 2021 until his September arrest at a New York hotel room. Joseph Cerciello, a Homeland Security Investigations agent, testified that dozens of the recordings from late 2021 until last August lasted many hours. Comey finished questioning Cerciello in the early afternoon Monday. After a cross-examination by the defense, the prosecution was expected to rest. The trial is in its seventh week, with closing arguments tentatively scheduled for Thursday after what was expected to be a brief defense presentation. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty. He's been active in his defense, writing notes to his attorneys and sometimes influencing when they stop questioning witnesses.
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Six Thousand Pounds of Sculpture Are Stolen, Somehow
Some thieves swipe something inexpensive from the drugstore. Maybe they lift a wallet. If they have a thirst for art, perhaps they nab a small painting. Recent art burglars in Southern California had to do it the hard way. Two large statues were taken from a secured warehouse in Anaheim, Calif., this month. And we mean large. They weighed in at 4,000 and 2,000 pounds each. 'They'd have had to have the right equipment, a truck, maybe a forklift, and several people to lift these statues,' said Sgt. Matt Sutter, a public information officer for the Anaheim police. Though the thieves showed some ingenuity, and maybe raw strength, in pulling off the heist, covering their tracks in the aftermath did not seem to have been their forte. The statues, taken sometime on the weekend of June 14, were located a week later thanks to tips from the community, the police said. They were found sitting in a trailer in a driveway in Anaheim. No arrests have been made as of Monday morning, but the police said they were still working on the case. The bronze and steel sculptures of winged, horned men are named 'Quantum Mechanics: Homme' and 'Icarus Within' and are the work of Daniel Winn, who calls his art style Existential Surrealism. Mr. Winn's art aims to 'explore the basic nature of human existence and examine the relationship between free will and providence, between self-determination and the universal plan,' according to his website. The 'Homme' sculpture was featured in a 2022 short film about him called 'Creation.' 'I have no physical, organic children,' Mr. Winn told The Los Angeles Times, when he learned of the theft. 'Every artwork I create is my child.' None of the more portable items in the warehouse were taken, whether existential, surreal or otherwise. Instead, only the eight feet tall winged behemoths somehow walked out of there. Or flew. The police said they did not know the motive. While it's possible that a mad art lover with a passion for the Daedalus legend nicked 'Icarus' and 'Homme,' the statues also might have been purloined for more mundane ends: to be sold for scrap metal. A bronze statue of the ballerina Marjorie Tallchief was hacked down from its pedestal on the grounds of a museum in Tulsa, Okla., in 2022. It was sold to recycling centers for a few hundred dollars.
Fox News
32 minutes ago
- Fox News
Fate of Karen Read now in jury's hands as murder trial reaches critical phase
Deliberations are underway in the Karen Read murder trial. After both sides gave their closing arguments Friday morning, Judge Beverly Cannone spent the early afternoon reading jury instructions before alternates were selected and the remaining jurors were sent to the deliberation room. Cannone selected Juror No. 5 to be the foreperson. The court clerk randomly pulled Nos. 13, 7, 6, 17, 2, and 8 as alternates. Read, 45, is accused of slamming her 2021 Lexus SUV into O'Keefe and leaving him to die on the ground in a blizzard on Jan. 29, 2022. Jurors heard more than 30 days of testimony in a trial that began on April 22. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan wrapped up his closing argument in the murder trial of Karen Read Friday afternoon, telling jurors there is no doubt that she's the one who killed John O'Keefe, her 46-year-old boyfriend, a Boston cop and the adoptive father of his orphaned niece and nephew. "She was drunk. She hit him. And she left him to die," Brennan said. "It's that simple." Multiple witnesses testified that they heard her repeating the phrase, "I hit him. I hit him. I hit him," Brennan said. But it was the hard data – not accident reconstruction or witness accounts, that proves his case, he said. O'Keefe's phone did not move from between the time Read allegedly slammed her 6,000-pound LX 570 in reverse until he was discovered dead on the lawn 5 and a half hours later. Although Read didn't testify in her own defense, Brennan used her own words against her in the form of multiple televised interviews she sat for. He alleged that they illustrate that she knowingly left O'Keefe to die after hitting him and where to find the body when she went looking the next morning. In one, she described O'Keefe as a "weird-shaped lump" and a "buffalo on the prairie," jutting out of the snow. "John O'Keefe is not a body. John O'Keefe is not a buffalo on a prairie," Brennan said. "He was a person, and he was murdered by Karen Read." Read's lead defense lawyer Alan Jackson urged jurors to find her not guilty Friday in a closing argument that disputed the prosecution's entire timeline from the night O'Keefe died. "There was no collision," Jackson told jurors. "There was no collision. There was no collision." He argued that a sloppy investigation, a lack of physical evidence and witness testimony left a mountain of reasonable doubt in the case. He said the commonwealth's case is "cooked" after an expert analysis of O'Keefe's injuries and called the prosecution's crash reconstruction a "ridiculous blue paint kindergarten project." The lead homicide detective got fired from the Massachusetts State Police and did not testify at trial. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB WATCH: Karen Read's father addresses media as she prepares for closing arguments The case is expected to go to jurors later this afternoon after more than 30 days of testimony. Although Judge Beverly Cannone asked for an earlier start than normal, court kicked off with a sidebar conference that lasted over a half-hour. Read faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on the top charge of second-degree murder. If convicted of drunken driving manslaughter, she would face 5 to 20.
