NEWPORT — Newport has seen a spate of shootings over the past eight months, and while municipal officials say they are concerned, they also say the town of 6,366 is a safe place to live.
Gun control advocates, however, say the uptick is alarming and people in town should ask more questions about firearm safety.
Five people were shot in five incidents reported since December, which include:
■A 75-year-old woman who authorities say was killed by her husband, who has dementia.
■A 2-year-old girl who was wounded when a neighbor allegedly fired a shotgun through the ceiling of the downstairs apartment.
■Two teens who were shot after what police say was a botched drug deal on Oak Street.
■A 24-year-old man who was shot during an altercation among neighbors over a shared driveway.
■A caregiver who ran to safety after the 80-year-old man she was caring for, and who is in a wheelchair, allegedly fired at her. She was uninjured.
Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs called the “cluster” of shootings “very concerning,” but said residents and people passing through Newport should not be worried for their safety. Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg and Selectboard Chairman Jeffrey Kessler concurred.
All of the incidents involved people who knew each other, so none of the shootings were at random. The incidents also are not connected, Burroughs said.
Burroughs contends the shootings could have happened anywhere, and that Newport, where a Sturm, Ruger & Co. gun plant is a major employer, was just the “unlucky recipient” of the incidents.
“There is no way for us to 1) predict, or 2) prevent these from occurring,” said Burroughs, who called Newport an “abundantly safe community” in part because the town has a large population of residents who are armed. “Newport, like much of the region, does in fact have a strong positive gun culture.”
Kessler, the Selectboard chairman, said some gun owners need better education surr ounding firearm safety and laws; Burroughs seconded that sentiment. That goes for people across the state.
“This is New Hampshire. People do own guns. … Some people are careless with them, and some need a better understanding of gun ownership,” Kessler said.
The fact that Ruger is in town played no role in the shootings, the chairman and the chief both said. Only one of the firearms used in the five shootings in Newport was a Ruger.
“There is no shortcut that gets guns into the community directly from Ruger,” Kessler said, adding that there is nothing specific to Newport that is causing the incidents to happen here. “I don’t think the location had any bearing.”
Attempts to reach a Ruger representative were unsuccessful.
Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway, whose office is in Newport and said he was reluctant to comment because he was overseeing the prosecution in most of the cases, acknowledged that the string of shootings was unusual in his 33 years as a prosecutor.
“It should be alarming to the population at large,” Hathaway said. Regardless of whether a bullet hit someone, the number of times “people are brandishing or discharging” firearms in town “is a matter of considerable concern.”
Five is an unprecedented number of shootings for the town.
There were no shootings in 2017, and Burroughs said data show other types of crime in town, such as theft and burglary, are trending downward. Burglaries in Newport decreased from 18 incidents in 2017 to 10 incidents in 2018, while motor vehicle thefts decreased from 25 incidents in 2017 to eight incidents in 2018, the National Incident-Based Reporting System statistics show. He also argued that the popularity of guns in town might also discourage some types of crime.
“People don’t break into people’s houses when they know they have guns,” said Burroughs, who referred to himself as a “Second Amendment advocate” who is not in favor of additional gun control measures.
But Zandra Rice Hawkins, the director for GunSense NH, a project of the left-leaning group Granite State Progress, said statewide data show gun violence is an increasing problem.
She said New Hampshire saw a 51% increase in gun deaths from 2008 to 2017, a figure she called “shocking” compared with the national increase of 17%.
“We need to take action to curb gun violence and to intervene before people cause harm to themselves or others,” Hawkins said, adding that GunSense NH supported three bills that went before Gov. Chris Sununu and encompassed background checks, waiting periods and gun-free school zones. Sununu vetoed all three measures on Aug. 9, citing in part the state’s “culture of responsible gun ownership.”
Burroughs said those bills and other gun control measures, such as banning high-capacity magazines, wouldn’t have had any effect on Newport’s recent shootings. No laws currently on the books played into them either, he said.
All of the shooters owned their guns lawfully. Each incident involved an “everyday-type firearm” with a standard magazine, he said. And no shooting took place in a school zone.
“It’s not the gun’s fault. It is the person that is manipulating the tool,” Burroughs said.
But additional education for gun owners who wish to carry a concealed weapon could be a good idea, Burroughs said. Those people should receive some instruction on safe handling, state laws and self-defense before they are able to carry a firearm, he said. Burroughs stopped short of saying it should be mandated.
Having the difficult conversation with aging family members about when it may be appropriate to remove guns from the home also is important, he said. At least one of the five Newport incidents involved an aging individual with a diminished mental status.
The unfortunate turn of events started on Dec. 8, 2018, when Goshen resident Jordan Richardson, 18, allegedly shot two people in broad daylight on Oak Street following a botched drug deal on a nearby rail trail. Both victims survived, but one was airlifted to the hospital. Richardson was with his 42-year-old father, Kurt, at the time, who allegedly brandished a rifle as he drove. Both men face charges.
On April 14, 51-year-old Timothy Hale, who police say had been drinking, allegedly fired a shotgun blast into the ceiling of his Laurel Street apartment, striking a 2-year-old girl who lived upstairs. She survived but has lasting scars, her family has said.
On May 7, George “Graham” Clarke shot and killed his wife Margaret “Peggy” Clarke, 75, inside their Maple Street home under circumstances that still haven’t been released. The Attorney General’s Office, which handled this case, concluded that Graham Clarke wouldn’t face criminal charges because he has dementia.
Less than a month later, on July 1, Kenneth Rickard, 80, allegedly shot at his caregiver out of jealousy that she might have a new boyfriend, prompting the woman to run down Rickard’s Springfield Road driveway and get in the car of a passing motorist. She was not injured.
On July 24, the fifth shooting in town took place on South Main Street, with 58-year-old Oliver Renehan allegedly shooting his 24-year-old neighbor in the leg, in what Renehan claims was self-defense, or defense of another. The victim survived.
The Richardsons, Hale, Rickard and Renehan have all pleaded not guilty; their cases are pending in Sullivan Superior Court in Newport.
While Burroughs said Newport historically hasn’t had a high number of shootings, the five incidents between December and July translate into a per capita rate of 1 shooting for every 1,273 residents in that time frame.
By contrast, Manchester, with a population of 112,525, saw 21 shootings or shots-fired incidents, including four homicides that involved guns, in the same time span. That translates to a per capita rate of one shooting for every 5,358 residents — less than one-quarter the rate of Newport, which styles itself as the Sunshine Town.
Virginia “Biddy” Irwin, a former School Board member, former Selectboard member and former Democratic lawmaker from Newport, said the statistics are daunting and should prompt people in the community to be on alert and have conversations they maybe haven’t felt were necessary before.
Asking neighbors whether they have guns in their homes may be one of those conversations, she said. Parents also may want to ask the same question of homes their children frequent and ask adults, “Do you keep (the guns) locked up?” she said.
The recent incidents are alarming, she said.
“I worry when people resort to gunplay as a response to a disagreement,” Irwin said. “It is the last thing you should turn to to try and solve disputes.”
She added: “It’s one thing when you sock someone in the eye. You can’t take a bullet back.”
Irwin is a proponent for stronger gun-control laws, including bans on high-capacity magazines and rapid-fire rifles.
A handful of parents in Newport earlier this month said they don’t feel any less safe in their community after hearing about the shootings, but at least one woman said she immediately thought of her children’s safety when she found out that one of the shootings happened on her street.
Rachel Nerenburg, who works at Ruger and lives on South Main Street, said she had a moment of pause when she heard about the shooting during the driveway dispute not far from where she lives. She questioned why a disagreement needs to resort to gunfire.
“There are other measures to take first,” Nerenburg said. “My concern is for my children,” who often ride their bikes around town, she said.
“I’m not all that worried,” resident Kim Dimick said about the recent incidents, adding that she tries to distance herself from news of the shootings. “Of course I think it’s awful, but what can you do about it?”
Rieseberg, the town manager, called the rise in shootings in America a “tragic trend” with no simple solution. Two recent mass shootings, one in El Paso, Texas, and the other in Dayton, Ohio, left 31 people dead and dozens more wounded in a single weekend.
Closer to home, Grafton County hasn’t been immune to shootings either lately. In November, Lebanon resident Gage Young, 23, allegedly fired a random shot into a group of people near Dartmouth College, hitting a Massachusetts man. And in April, Grafton resident Joseph Brown, 38, shot a man following a road-rage incident on Route 4 in what he said was self-defense. Both victims were injured but survived. Young and Brown have pleaded not guilty and their cases are pending in Grafton Superior Court in North Haverhill.
And in neighboring Claremont, resident Michael Burns, 55, allegedly fired “hundreds” of rounds in a residential area on Thursday during a nine-hour standoff. No one was injured, and he pleaded not guilty to charges of felony reckless conduct with a deadly weapon in Sullivan Superior Court on Friday.
Fortunately for Newport, the alleged criminals “are not people out preying on other people,” Rieseberg said.
“It’s unfortunate that these have kind of put a veil over the community,” Rieseberg said. “(The town) cannot or should not be defined by these incidents.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.