Teen charged in East Windsor shooting, several other crimes

Alex Wood, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
Updated ·3 min read

Oct. 27—A teenager who has lived in Hartford and East Hartford is accused of firing at least two shots at an occupied sport utility vehicle in the parking lot of an East Windsor hotel in June, wounding the driver's leg and causing flying debris to injure another passenger, who needed stitches.

SHOOTING

DEFENDANT: Raquan Quamaine Knight, 19, formerly of Laraia Avenue, East Hartford, who later listed Hartford addresses

MAJOR CHARGES: First-degree assault and other charges in June 21 shooting outside Rodeway Inn & Suites in East Windsor; also facing gun charges stemming from Hartford shooting investigation

STATUS: Free on more than $955,000 bond. Next due Nov. 22 in Hartford Superior Court.

The suspect, Raquan Quamaine Knight, 19, who formerly lived on Laraia Avenue in East Hartford, is also facing gun charges stemming from the Hartford police investigation of a shooting three days earlier in which a man was wounded in both legs while walking on Park Street in Hartford.

In addition, Knight is accused of fleeing from an East Hartford police officer who was trying to stop him for having an extremely loud exhaust in late May — and, the next day, possessing a Lexus SUV stolen outside a Manchester store.

Knight is free on more than $955,000 bond, court records show. His bond conditions include home confinement with electronic monitoring of his whereabouts, intensive pretrial supervision, weekly drug testing, and court orders not to possess guns or ammunition or contact the complainants in his cases, the records show.

East Windsor police received a "frantic 911 call" shortly after 5 p.m. on June 21 from a woman who had been a passenger in the SUV that was fired on outside the hotel, according to an affidavit by local police Detective Scott Roberts.

The SUV had fled from the shooting scene in the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn & Suites at 161 Bridge St. into Windsor Locks, where police from both towns located it at the middle school. Two of the three people who had been riding in it were taken to the hospital for treatment, the detective reported.

"None of the victims could or would identify the shooter or give any explanation for why they were shot at," he wrote.

But the victims did describe the incident, and police got the hotel's surveillance video.

They learned that two Acura sedans, one white and one gray, had been circling around the hotel's parking lot before someone fired shots from one of them at the victims' SUV. The witnesses differed as to which car the shots came from, and Roberts reported that the video didn't clearly show the shooting.

In investigating the Park Street shooting, Hartford police searched Knight's gray Acura sedan and found a loaded 9mm pistol and a "sling bag" similar to that worn by a suspect seen in the East Windsor hotel's surveillance video shortly before the shooting there, Roberts reported.

A test-fire of the pistol produced shell casings with marks matching those on the casings found in the East Windsor hotel's parking lot, according to the detective's summary of an analysis at the state Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden.

Moreover, a video found on Knight's cellphone showed him holding a gun in his lap matching the one found in his car, down to a "dimple" in its handle, according to the detective. GPS information on the phone showed that it was at a car wash on Bridge Street in East Windsor, not far from the Rodeway Inn, minutes before the shooting, he continued.

And a selfie taken by Knight less than two hours before the shooting showed him wearing a "balaclava"-style ski mask and a silvery diamond watch, both similar to those worn by the East Windsor shooting suspect shown in the hotel's surveillance video, the detective reported.

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