A Yale University graduate student was shot dead Saturday night in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven, the school said.
Police responded to reports of seven shots fired at the intersection of Lawrence and Nicoll streets around 8:30 p.m. to find 26-year-old Kevin Jiang dead in the center of the road, New Haven reported. Independent.
Police found Jiang’s body very close to his Prius, which had subsequent damage, according to The Independent. Police are investigating whether a car accident preceded the murder.
Jiang, a student at Yale Forestry School, lived nearby with her fiancé and mother, according to the report. He was an active member of Trinity Baptist Church on State Street, where he was remembered on Sunday as “cheerful, energetic” and “cheerful.”
The victim previously made a stay in the U.S. military and continued to be a member of the National Guard at the time of his death, according to his LinkedIn page.
Yale president Peter Salovey called Jiang “an extraordinary young man.”
“The New Haven police department treats this incident as a homicide and is actively working on the arrest of the person or persons responsible,” Salovey said in a statement.
Jiang is the first Yale graduate student murdered in New Haven since 2009, when police found Annie Le, a 24-year-old animal research technician, stuffed into a wall of the lab where she worked.
Le’s 44-year-old co-worker eventually faced the crime and Yale agreed to pay her family $ 3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the university had not adequately protected women on campus.