The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Police: Suspect in shooting of toddler immediately fled
WATERBURY — The 20-year-old who police said shot a toddler while handling a gun last week ran from the Pinecrest Drive home so quickly the boy’s mother presumed he was getting his car to take the child to the hospital, court documents show.
Instead, Kharis Samuels fled the scene, Waterbury Supervisory State’s Attorney Don Therkildsen said Tuesday during his arraignment in Waterbury Superior Court. The car registered to Samuels was spotted on license plate readers in New York about 30 minutes after the shooting, according to a warrant for his arrest.
Samuels, of Ridgeway Avenue in Waterbury, turned himself in at police headquarters Monday, Lt. Ryan Bessette said. He is charged with risk of injury to a minor, first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment and weapons offenses, he said. He was held on $750,000 after the arraignment.
His attorney Erin Field said her client maintains “his innocence.” He also told her that he had no idea why Bristol police had a warrant for his arrest since he “had never been to” that city.
The 2-year-old boy, who was shot in the torso, survived and remains in stable condition at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Bessette said Tuesday. The bullet entered the area of the boy’s upper-left abdomen and came out at his lower back and then became lodged in a picture window in the room where the toddler was playing, the warrant said.
He suffered damage to his intestines, which likely needed to be fixed with surgery, Waterbury Hospital staff told police. The child was breathing on his own after being shot, but was intubated to allow physicians to treat him, the warrant said.
Police said it appears Samuels was showing off a gun when it went off, striking the child, who was in his walker at the time.
Samuels had bragged to the toddler’s older brother that he had a gun, the warrant said. They were playing video games, but the older brother left the room to talk to his mother and didn’t know what Samuels was doing or what room he was in when the gun went off, the warrant said.
It wasn’t until the older brother ran into the living room after the shot was fired that he saw the gun sitting on a chair, the warrant stated. When Samuels was running out of the home, he yelled “it wasn’t his fault or something like that,” the children’s mother told police, according to the warrant.
The older brother used his shirt to stem the flow of blood and then put the 2-yearold in his arms so their mother could drive him to the hospital, the warrant said.
Detectives found the bullet and a spent shell casing on the living room, but did not find the gun, the warrant said.
Police had initially said the 2-year-old and his three siblings, including an older brother, were in the custody of their paternal grandmother and their parents were “in the picture.” The children’s mother told police she lives in the single-family raised ranch along the quiet street with her mother.
According to police, the toddler was shot June 21 when Samuels was visiting the child’s older sibling at the family’s Pinecrest Drive home. Two other young children also were in the house when the boy was shot, police said.
The children’s mother had just gotten home from work and was in the bathroom when she heard a loud bang and her young son crying, the warrant said.
The family took the toddler to Waterbury Hospital themselves and hospital staff notified police about the young gunshot patient. The boy then was flown to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.
Police quickly identified the suspect as Samuels, who was also wanted in Bristol on robbery and threatening charges after an incident in December 2021, Lt. Geoffrey Lund said.
In that case, Lund said, Samuels is accused of threatening an acquaintance with a gun over a debt.
Although police said he lives in Waterbury, Field said Samuels spends most of his time in New York and he called her as soon as he learned there was a warrant for his arrest.
Samuels, who was wearing a red sweatshirt and jeans in court Tuesday, works part-time at a Chipotle restaurant, his attorney said. It is unclear if the Chipotle is in Connecticut or New York.
Samuels’ weapons charges from the shooting case are criminal use of a weapon, illegal discharge of a firearm, illegal transfer of a pistol/revolver, carrying a pistol without a permit and illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle.
His next court date is July 13.