A 17-year-old Ansonia resident underwent surgery after being shot outside the Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive Wednesday.
Marquvios Mullins, of 125 Olson Drive, was shot once in the rib cage — and the bullet hit his spine, police said.
He is in Yale-New Haven Hospital in serious condition, Ansonia police Lt. Andrew Cota said.
Hospital officials told police it is possible Mullins will be paralyzed. However, police have not received an official update from the hospital about the extent of Mullins’ injuries, Cota said Thursday.
Police have not had a chance to interview Mullins due to the extent of his injury.
No one answered the door at Mullins’ apartment inside the Riverside complex Thursday morning.
Ansonia police are searching for the man who shot Mullins.
Cota said police are reviewing video surveillance from Ansonia Housing Authority cameras as part of their investigation. The Riverside Apartments are managed by the housing authority.
The housing authority recently installed 24 cameras around the complex as a security measure.
At least four of those cameras were pointed in the general direction of where Mullins was shot Wednesday night.
The shooting happened after a fight with about five or six people at about 7:30 p.m. April 11, police said.
“We’re trying to determine how many people were there, if there’s people we can identify from (the video),” Cota said Thursday.
The man who shot Mullins is described as a black man in his late teens or early 20s.
Police said they do not know what the group was arguing about just prior to the shooting.
Neighbors at the Riverside Apartments said they didn’t know much about Mullins, except that he was generally “a good kid.”
Many who spoke to the Valley Independent Sentinel declined to give their names.
Mullins was listed on a freshman football roster for Ansonia High School in 2010. Cota said police did not know if he still attended the school.
Dajuan Washington, who lives nearby, said he knew Mullins because he has nephews around the same age.
“From what I hear, it was a stupid incident,” Washington said. “It’s just a sad situation.”
“I’ve never seen him hanging around with what you’d call ‘the bad crowd,’“Washington said. “I thought he was a pretty good kid.”
‘Relatively Quiet’
The incident happened after a relative lull in serious crime at the apartment complex.
The Riverside Apartments were in the news in 2009 after two murders, and a handful of shootings, happened in the neighborhood.
But since 2010, police have increased patrols at the apartment complex, and the Ansonia Housing Authority has cracked down on rule violations in an attempt to weed out crime.
The security cameras were part of that effort.
Cota said those efforts continue. A police officer was at the apartment complex when the shooting took place.
The officer was on the northern section of the apartment complex, near the shopping center on Maple Street. The shooting took place in front of 106 Olson Drive, near High Street.
“The officer called it in. He heard the shot,” Cota said. “He pulled around and saw the kid lying on the ground. He was there within seconds. He saw people running.”
Cota said the officer tended to Mullins immediately, and called for an ambulance.
“It’s been relatively quiet,” Cota said. “There’s nothing that’s drawn our attention down there that something serious was brewing. This seems to have just stirred up last night.”
Investigation
In addition to reviewing surveillance footage, police are interviewing witnesses.
“We have some names that have surfaced,” Cota said. “That’s what we’re investigating now.”
Cota said the department has also been talking with officials from the Ansonia Housing Authority.
A message seeking comment was left with Interim Executive Director Jimmy Miller.
Police are also hoping to talk to Mullins once he is able to speak to them.
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the detective’s bureau at the Ansonia Police Department at (203) 735‑1885.
Valley Indy reporter Ethan Fry contributed to this report.
