Warrant: Confrontation with school bully ended in gunfire
NORWALK — A Darien woman says she drove family members to the Roodner Court Public Housing Complex last month to confront a school bully, who opened fire on them and wounded a 15-year-old, according to police affidavits.
Surveillance video showed an SUV arrived at the housing complex at 6:52 p.m. July 13, and the 15-year-old got out with two others, one wearing a ski mask over his entire face and the other carrying a baseball bat, according to the affidavits by Norwalk Detective Lindsey Taylor.
The group approached four others who were sitting on bleachers near a basketball court, and the juvenile in the ski mask started hitting the 16-yearold who later fired the gunshot, the detective reported.
A man identified as Latrel Stewart, 24, of Madison Street in Norwalk, then swung the bat at the 16-year-old, who appeared to fall back onto the bleachers and put his hands up to block the bat, according to the detective.
Amid the fight that followed, Stewart chased the 16-year-old to the opposite side of the basketball court, the detective reported. Stewart then retreated, and the 16-yearold extended both arms forward and fired a single shot toward the group, wounding the 15-year-old, Taylor said.
Essence Broome, 33, of Hollow Tree Ridge Road in Darien — the family member who drove the group to the fight — took the 15-year-old to Norwalk Hospital where personnel reported that he had suffered a “through-andthrough gunshot wound” in his left hip area, according to the detective.
The shooting victim was “completely uncooperative,” refusing to say who shot him and blaming injuries to his face on a fall from a dirt bike, the detective reported.
Broome was charged with risk of injury to a child based on evidence that she drove the 15-yearold, a second juvenile and Stewart to the housing complex “for the purpose of engaging in a confrontation” with the 16-yearold who later fired the shot, according to the detective. The juvenile who was sitting next to Broome in the front seat of the SUV was wearing the ski mask and Stewart got out of the vehicle with a baseball bat, the detective explained.
Stewart, described by Broome as her cousin, was charged with attempted second-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace based on evidence of his actions during the fight, according to the detective.
He and Broome are also facing charges of thirddegree criminal trespass based on a “No Trespassing” sign at the sole entrance to the housing complex, according to the detective.
Broome and Stewart have been released on bond and are scheduled to appear Friday in state Superior Court in Stamford. Although neither has any criminal history, according to the detective, Broome’s bond is $100,000 and Stewart’s is $50,000, records show.
Stewart and Broome did not respond to requests for comment last week.
In an initial interview with the detective, Broome reported “a long history of issues with fights in school and bullying, which was repeatedly reported to school officials and school resource officers,” according to the detective.
Two days before the shooting, Broome said, several people, including the 16-year-old accused of firing the shot, “jumped” the 15-year-old near the police station, hitting him with baseball bats and injuring his face and head, the detective reported.
In a second interview, Broome “agreed that it was problematic that she drove these three to Roodner Court armed,” but referred to the assault on the 15-year-old two days earlier, according to the detective.
She said the bat was already in the vehicle because her niece plays softball and maintained that Stewart “was just going to hold it” because the group had used bats in the previous assault on the 15-yearold, the detective reported.
She said she drove the three to the confrontation because the 15-year-old “cannot leave the house for fear of getting jumped and is afraid for his life every single day,” the detective wrote.
The 16-year-old suspected of committing the shooting is charged with first-degree assault, firstdegree reckless endangerment, carrying a pistol without a permit and illegal discharge of a firearm, Norwalk Police Sgt. Ryan Evarts said. Evarts said in a news release four days after the shooting that the suspect was being held in juvenile detention.