You’ve just been stabbed more times than you count on a city street. One wound is so deep there’s a hole in your intestines.
Blood pours down your arm from the five stab wounds in your left shoulder. There’s a puncture wound in your left armpit.
But you’re alive — and you know the guy who did it. Here come the police.
What do you tell them?
Nothing.
At least that’s what the 19-year-old man who was stabbed on Hawkins Street May 19 did, according to an arrest warrant unsealed Tuesday at Superior Court in Derby.
Arrest Warrants Shed Light
Police arrested Stephan Coney, of Atwater Avenue in Derby, for the stabbing described above.
In addition to the May 19 stabbing, Coney is charged in connection to a July 8 stabbing in the parking lot of Over the Hill Tavern on Hawkins Street.
In the second stabbing, another 19-year-old was seriously injured.
The unsealed court documents confirm the existence of the “Purple City Goons,” a Valley street gang first reported by the Valley Independent Sentinel in June.
Street Code
The first victim’s reason for not cooperating is as chilling as it is bizarre — he didn’t want to hurt his street cred.
Immediately after the May 19 stabbing, as the victim lay bleeding on the ground outside Mr. D’s, a convenience store at the intersection of Hawkins and Eighth streets, he told police he didn’t know who attacked him.
On May 25, after surgeons at Yale cut a 10-inch incision down his lower right abdomen to repair his intestines, the victim told Derby detectives Coney had stabbed him — but he didn’t want to press charges.
The victim had sympathy for Coney, telling police that if he thought someone was about to jump him, he could understand the need to stab.
In addition, the victim claimed to be a gang member.
“(The victim) said he was a well-respected Crips gang member from Atlanta and is so respected in the Crips that he believes that Stephan will be killed for what he did,” the arrest warrant states.
In addition, the victim allegedly told police he didn’t want to press charges because “Stephan would have no chance in jail.”
Victims Speak
It was only after Coney allegedly stabbed a second victim, in the parking lot of Over the Hill Tavern, that the first victim decided to go on the record — 30 days after he was stabbed.
The first victim went on the record with police after learning the second victim was already talking. The two victims are friends.
In that second attack, Coney allegedly chased the victim down Hawkins Street to Over the Hill, then stabbed him with a “claw”-like knife.
That victim survived, but suffered a punctured lung.
What Prompted The Violence?
Coney, the young suspect, talked to police about the first stabbing, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
He allegedly told detectives that he had never had a problem with the Purple City Goons, a Valley street gang “who have been suspected or arrested in connection with several crimes in the area,” according to police.
However, when Coney got out of jail last spring for an unspecified crime, there were a lot “of new people hanging around with the Purple City Goons.”
The warrants don’t clearly state whether the victims or Coney are members of the Purple City Goons, but Coney references the gang several times in his statement to police.
Coney told police he had called a woman — who may have been connected to the gang — a “bitch.”
Coney claims the gang then came after him and his friend.
Coney claims he was jumped May 19 behind a residence on Hawkins Street and that he stabbed one of his attackers in self-defense.
The victims, however, claim that Coney targeted them because one of them disrespected Coney’s aunt.
Coney is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 10. In addition to statements from the victims, detectives collected blood evidence against Coney.
The two recent stabbings, in addition to a shooting and a street brawl — all in the same, two block area of Hawkins Street — have Derby residents upset and angry.
Some politicians have suggested a curfew. The police chief, meanwhile, announced last week he’s trying to get the U.S. Department of Justice involved in an effort to stem the recent violence.
