No Shootings This Halloween In New Haven

By Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — For the first time in three years, no one was shot in downtown New Haven this Halloween.

Subscribe

Police Chief David Zannelli and Mayor Justin Elicker announced that news at a press conference at police headquarters on Wednesday.

They credited the increased presence of police, public works, and Town Green District staffers downtown — as well as the closure of under-21 "juice bars" — as leading to a safer Halloween weekend this year.

"We feel it was a major contributing factor" to safety downtown last weekend, Zannelli said about newly enacted local legislation that allows the city to crack down on "juice bars." Those are areas of downtown clubs that are specifically designated for people under the age of 21, and where alcohol is not supposed to be served.

Elicker and Zannelli and other city and state officials held a press conference a few days before Halloween, heralding the new local legislation. The local laws prohibit the opening of new juice bars in New Haven, create a local permitting process for existing juice bars, and increase fines for those that break the rules. They also allow the police chief to order that no juice bar events take place in town on any given day — which is exactly what Zannelli ordered for Halloween weekend.

Elicker and Zannelli said that roughly 6,000 people turned out to downtown for Halloween. That compares to upwards of 10,000 people who showed up downtown last year. Elicker said that the new juice bar legislation was "crucial" in reducing the number of people who came downtown over the weekend. "We had no juice bars open," he said, which meant smaller crowds downtown — and fewer problems for police to respond to.

Elicker said that police made a total of four arrests downtown on Halloween — for fighting, disorderly conduct, and breach of peace. None of which involved guns.

This Halloween "went much, much more smoothly" than previous years, Elicker said.

In 2024, a shooting that took place near Church Street and Center Street injured four people between the ages of 19 and 22.

And in 2025, a shooting that took place in that very same area, near Church and Center outside of Gotham Citi nightclub, killed an 18-year-old Norwich resident named Alexa Acevedo and injured three others between the ages of 18 and 21. City police estimated that between 7,000 and 10,000 people were present downtown that night.

Local officials have said that juice bars downtown contributed to the conditions that led to that violence.

Zannelli said that, between city and state and Yale police departments, there were roughly 50 to 60 officers downtown on Halloween. Zannelli also credited the juice bar bill — and the weekend-long juice bar prohibition — as reducing crowd sizes for the holiday weekend.

2 Shootings, 2 Arrests

Also on Wednesday, Zannelli, Elicker, and New Haven Police Department Capt. Nicolas Marcucio discussed two recent arrests regarding non-fatal shootings.

One of those shootings took place on Oct. 20 at around 4 a.m. That's when New Haven police officers were dispatched to the 300 block of Canner Street for the report of a person shot. The victim, a 30-year-old Yale custodial worker at the Divinity School, reported that someone had tried to steal his car and had shot him in the process.

Marcucio said that surveillance video footage showed that the victim had a "collapsible baton in his pocket" and that he struck the person trying to rob him several times before that person shot him. Police wound up arresting a 20-year-old New Havener. He was first taken into custody on Oct. 23 for criminal possession of a firearm, possession of a high-capacity magazine, and possession of a controlled substance. He has not yet entered pleas to those charges, and is currently being held on a $500,000 bond. He was then arrested, while incarcerated, on Nov. 3 on charges of first-degree assault, first-degree robbery with a deadly weapon, criminal possession of a firearm, and carrying a pistol without a permit. He has not yet entered pleas to those charges, and is currently being held on a $750,000 bond.

The second shooting discussed at Wednesday's presser took place on Oct. 24 at around 1:23 p.m. City police officers responded to the 200 block of Pine Street for a report of a person shot. Over the course of his investigation, Det. Matthew Stevens determined that a 16-year-old had gotten into a dispute with — and then shot — a relative of his. The 16-year-old has been charged with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a child, and carrying a pistol without a permit. He was arrested on Oct. 27 and has been assigned a $50,000 bond.

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.