Teen, 18, Killed In Shooting In Hamden: Police

HAMDEN, CT — An 18-year-old Hamden resident was killed in a shooting on Sunday night, according to police.

Police responded to the 200 block of Circular Avenue around 9 p.m. on the report of shots fired, according to Capt. Ronald Smith.

Smith said an 18-year-old was shot and treated at the scene by Hamden Fire Rescue personnel. The victim was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to Smith.

Smith said police are continuing to investigate and more information will be released later.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Andrew Lipford at 203-230-4055.

Hamden Mayor Curt Balzano Leng released the following statement on social media on Monday:

Another senseless act of violence has taken the life of a young man from our community; a young man just 18 years old. The vicious plague of gun violence, among all ages, but most especially amongst our youth, is such a deep failure of society.

The report I have to give is not long or extensive, but I wanted to share it with you. The Hamden Police have an open, active investigation ongoing right now. This was not believed to be a random act. We are working with our Street Outreach Worker Program to learn more about what happened and to de-escalate to prevent retaliation and cyclical violence. I sincerely hope that there will be additional information from the Hamden Police sooner than not.

These tragedies are senseless, and they are permanent.

We need to do so much more and we all need to be working together to make tomorrow better; neighbor, parent, government, non-profit, friend.

Please know that the Hamden Police Department is doing their part to address these tragedies. They are making changes and adding programs and activities, and perhaps most important they are making reformative changes to the way they perform their duty, directly designed to reduce and prevent violence. We shall double our efforts - we must - this is life or death.

If you have any information that you can share with the Hamden Police Department regarding this tragedy or anything associated with this or other planned or discussed acts of violence, I beg you to contact the Police. It can be completely anonymous. Please, take that action, you could be saving someone’s life.