By Peter Yankowski
New Haven Register, Conn.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The video opens with a still image over looking a Bridgeport street-scape. Texts slide into view, proclaiming it to be 1:31 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2020, as audio from a police radio crackles to life.
“Can I have any available...sector units head over to 96 Remington Street. We got a ShotSpotter activation and we’ve got reports of a — party down,” the disembodied voice recites.
The recording is from the killing of Abdul Hassan Lemon, who was fatally shot during those early hours of Jan. 10, 2020. His unsolved death is the subject of a new video series, “Park City Confidential,” produced by the Bridgeport police homicide unit to try to generate fresh tips from the public.
Lemon, 38, was shot multiple times on Remington Street, where he also lived, authorities have said. Police fielded multiple calls reporting a person shot, and arrived to find the victim “lying in the street,” a police spokesperson said at the time. He was taken to Bridgeport Hospital, where died from his injuries, police said.
The shooting marked the first homicide of 2020 in Bridgeport.
Statewide, investigators are pursuing leads in dozens of cold case killings and other crimes, some dating back to the early 80s. Last year, police in East Haven were able to identify Patricia Meleady Newsom as the Jane Doe whose remains were found in a ditch wrapped in a tarp in the mid-1970s, putting a name to a case that had baffled investigators for decades. Newsom was identified only after police exhumed her remains for DNA testing, authorities said.
In the Lemon cold case, police said the call to Remington Street was precipitated by an “altercation” in the street later reported by witnesses.
“What led up to that was a previous altercation that happened downtown,” Bridgeport police Detective Thomas Harper said in the video. He said investigators spoke with witnesses and were able to obtain video both from the scene on Remington Street and downtown.
Harper, who is the lead investigator working the case, said the shooting scene was “centralized,” and there were no cars fleeing the area.
“It wasn’t a drive-by shooting or anything of that nature,” he said.
Police said the purpose of the video series “is to generate tips from the public.” They said each episode will run about five minutes and include both detectives and family members of the victims.
Lemon’s mother, who appeared in the police video, described her son as a Bridgeport substitute teacher, dog lover and car enthusiast — particularly Hondas.
“He was a good child,” Valerie Carr said.
“Once you met him you were like, ‘Oh he’s awesome,’” she said.
Carr said Lemon’s son was only a little over a year old when he was killed. When she talks to him on the phone at his home in Pennsylvania she says he asks her “Why did they kill my dad?”
“The only thing I can say is if you know something pertaining to my son’s murder, please come forward,” Carr said. “Closure is very important for this family. And without the closure, it’s like I deal with pain every single day. I’m not saying that the closure is going to solve everything, but what I am saying is that it could bring some relief.
“And if we continue and we allow people to just get away with taking somebody’s life, how do we clean up our communities? We have to do something about these killing predators on the street,” she added. “We have to.”
Anyone with information about Abdul Lemon’s killing can contact Detective Thomas Harper at 203-581-5239, or 203-576-TIPS.
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