Church Street shooting suspect still at large

Police investigators have been hard pressed to describe — much less find — the person who shot a young man to death early Sunday morning in downtown Burlington.

As of early Monday morning, the killer remained at large.

An emerging portrait of the victim steers the search, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said Sunday afternoon.

Del Pozo summarized:

• A dispute between two men preceded the gunshot death of Odafemi Adedapo, a 28-year-old man from the Brooklyn borough of New York City, on lower Church Street at 2:13 a.m.
• Adedapo, whom police say had been associated with a New York criminal gang, was in possession of quantities of crack cocaine "inconsistent with personal use."
• Adedapo had at least 12 criminal felony arrests, including those for robbery, possession of loaded firearms, kidnapping and aggravated assault.
• The victim was known by New York City police to be a member of the "Cashford Crips" gang, headquartered in Brooklyn. Adedapo survived a shooting in Brooklyn in September, and his assailants were never apprehended.
• Sunday morning's violence began as a dispute inside the Zen Lounge — although the lower Church Street nightclub contests that claim.

"This isn’t the random act of violence that afflicts a total stranger," the chief said at an afternoon news conference.

But the suspect's escalation of a dispute into gunfire, he added, makes him "a dangerous type of person to have out on the street."

Witnesses said Adedapo was shot near the intersection of Church and King streets, in front of the Committee on Temporary Shelter's Waystation shelter — the old Wilson Hotel.

Scores of patrons leaving downtown bars at closing time were in the vicinity, and police officers were posted on Main Street; within 50 yards of where the shooting took place.

Police said Adedapo had no pulse when officers, responding to gunshots, reached the victim and administered CPR.

Those officers, posted at Main Street, reached Adedapo within a minute, del Pozo said; an EMT crew from the Burlington Fire Department arrived 4 minutes after the shooting, del Pozo said.

"I think any city would be happy to have that type of response," he added. "By any standard, that’s a short amount of time.”

Adedapo was taken to University of Vermont Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The shooting marked the second fatal encounter in the city in less than a week.

On Tuesday, law enforcement officers shot and killed a drug-trafficking suspect, Kenneth Stephens, after they say he aimed a muzzleloader rifle at agents who were serving a federally organized no-knock warrant at the Elmwood Avenue residence.

"These are disturbing events," Mayor Miro Weinberger said Sunday evening. "Fortunately they remain quite rare in Burlington — and I hope residents recognize that we have a police department that intends to keep it that way."

The department plans to expand its use of foot patrols and community policing as proactive strategies to protect Burlingtonians, he added.

Rattled night-clubbers, neighbors

Roger Macomber said he witnessed the shooting while he was standing on Church Street north of Main Street, about 100 yards from the slaying.

Macomber said he saw two men arguing as they walked south on Church Street past City Hall. He said the men crossed Main Street — where a police cruiser and officers were stationed — and continued in that direction.

"They were unhappy with each other," Macomber said.

Moments later, Macomber said he heard five gunshots. Macomber said the man he saw fire the shots was a black man in his 20s with a short, Afro-style haircut.

Veronica Pearlman said the shooting occurred right outside her first-floor bedroom window on Church Street. She said she heard six shots and saw a person, whom she described as a short black man, fall to the ground.

Pearlman said police arrived at the scene about a minute later. After directing a crowd of about 50 to 75 people away from the scene, Pearlman said the officers began treating the victim.

"They hopped on him for about four minutes," Pearlman said. "One cop did chest compressions, while the other cop helped him out."

Eric Birkeland, a resident at the COTS Waystation at 187 Church St, said he had just turned in for the night when he heard six "pops" of a firearm.

Birkeland said he and others were looking down from a window and saw the victim, still moving slightly, on the sidewalk near a cluster of parked bicycles.

A chaotic scene

Bars and restaurants typically close by 2 a.m., and Burlington police have described bar closing as a weekly challenge for officers, when thousands of patrons, some of them intoxicated, exit downtown establishments.

Contradicting police accounts, a spokesperson from Zen Lounge, a half-block north of the shooting scene, denied that an argument between suspect and victim had taken place on their premises.

In a post on Facebook on Sunday morning, Zen Lounge asserted that the fatal dispute originated elsewhere.

"We split up a small scuffle at the bottom of the stairs," Zen Lounge posted. "We saw the photo of the victim & it was neither party involved in the scuffle & we did not recognize him."

On Dec. 18, in a separate incident, a person was arrested with a loaded handgun after he was kicked out of Zen Lounge.

Del Pozo said that incident and Sunday's killing appear unrelated.

Sunday's case, until all the witnesses have been interviewed and video footage viewed, presents a substantial challenge: no description of the killer.

"There are members of the public out there right now as we speak who know exactly who it is, either as eyewitnesses or as acquaintances with the perpetrator or even friends of the victim," del Pozo said.

"But I’m waiting to hear from people who have that knowledge, and I know they’re minutes from here."

The Burlington Police Department, which is leading the investigation, have asked anyone with information about the incident to call a tip line at (802) 540-2113 or at the anonymous Crime Stoppers number: (802) 864-6666.

Uneasy calm

Throughout the early hours of Sunday morning, Church Street was blocked off by police cruisers and crime-scene tape from Main Street to King Street. An evidence van was parked about halfway down the block, in front of the driveway to the county Superior Court house and the loading dock of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts.

Church Street reopened around 6:30 a.m., though the sidewalk remained taped off.

Earlier, more than a dozen evidence markers were scattered along the sidewalk and into the street, the largest cluster on the concrete in front of the Waystation.

Several police officers stood watch in the predawn darkness. Light rain fell. Other investigators canvassed the scene or took measurements.

A waist-high cigarette disposal receptacle was overturned on the sidewalk.

Blue lights from police cars reflected on the rain-slicked pavement.

The scene was quiet, though, and still.

Todd Cardinal, 57, among residents on lower Church Street who slept through the incident, described the killing as "senseless," but perhaps part of a long-term deterioration in public safety.

"Burlington’s changed quite a bit over the past 10 years," Cardinal said. "It’s growing, it’s gotten bigger, it’s gotten more wild and there are more people in the streets nowadays.

"People I know who were doing well are really bad," he continued. "I don’t know what’s going on, maybe it’s the economy, the world, I don’t know."

“Is it unsafe here? Absolutely," Cardinal said. "Is it an isolated incident? Probably. Will it happen again here in another hundred years? Probably. Will it happen next week? No. Probably not even the week after."

Paul Soychak, who lives in an apartment at Church and Maple streets, said he had been preparing to step outside for one of his usual late-night walks when he heard the shots.

"People were upset — it was scary — I mean, we have kids running around this neighborhood," Soychak said.

The police, he added, did a good job of keeping things calm and orderly at the scene.

His community has grown accustomed to some degree of noise and raucous behavior along Church Street, Soychak said, "but this literally shook us all."

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This story, which was originally published online Dec. 27, 2015, will be updated as more information becomes available.

Burlington police originally gave Adedapo's age as 29; later Sunday they revised the figure to 28.

Free Press' Philip Tortora contributed to this report.

Contact Zach Despart at 651-4826 or zdespart@burlingtonfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ZachDespart. Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or asilverman@freepressmedia.com, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wej12.