CT man sentenced to 8 years for shooting man outside apartment where wife, children were sleeping
A man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after police say he shot a man in the chest in New Britain outside an apartment where the victim’s wife and two children were asleep.
Derrick Wheeler, 37, of East Hartford received the sentence Thursday in New Britain Superior Court where a judge ordered that his prison term will be followed by five years of probation, according to Judicial Branch records.
The sentencing came after Wheeler pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree assault with a firearm and criminal possession of a firearm or ammunition in November, court records indicate. Prosecutors did not pursue charges of attempted murder, illegal discharge of a firearm, criminal use of a weapon and other related offenses.
The charges stemmed from the shooting of a 34-year-old man in New Britain on March 26, 2023.
According to the report written by the New Britain Police Department, witnesses heard two people arguing outside the victim’s Whiting Street apartment before gunshots went off shortly after 2:20 a.m. The suspect fled down the apartment building stairs and outside, police wrote.
The wife of the victim told police the sound of gunfire woke her up before she found her husband outside the apartment door with a gunshot wound to the chest, the report said. The woman told investigators her 5-year-old twin sons were sleeping in the apartment when the shooting occurred.
The victim was brought outside the apartment building by his wife and a friend before police arrived and tended to his injuries, according to the report. The man was taken in an ambulance to Hartford Hospital, where he was later listed in stable condition.
Police officers pursued a 2019 Mercedes believed to be used by the shooter before the motorist struck a wooden pylon, jumped a curb and crashed through a chain link fence housing the tennis courts at New Britain High School on Mill Street, police wrote in the report. The suspect rammed another part of the fence to get out of the enclosed area despite an officer ordering him at gunpoint to get out of the vehicle, the report said.
The motorist fled east on John Karbonic Way and crashed into multiple wooden telephone poles when he failed to navigate a turn, according to the report. The suspect took off on foot when the vehicle became disabled in a dirt parking lot near New Britain Stadium.
Police wrote in the report that they were able to tie the vehicle to Wheeler’s girlfriend. They also said they found a handgun in the grass near a wood line on John Karbonic Way. The gun was the same caliber as the shell casings recovered outside the Whiting Street apartment, according to the report.
Shortly thereafter, Berlin police located Wheeler walking on Chamberlain Highway and detained him until New Britain police arrived and said he matched the description of the suspect in the shooting.