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4 Arrested in Shooting Death of Seventh-Grade Connecticut Boy Walking Home From Store

Police have arrested four young people in connection with the shooting death of a 12-year-old Bridgeport boy last week.

Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim's office announced Monday that an 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old have been arrested in connection to 12-year-old Clinton Howell's death.

Ganim's office said the 18-year-old is being charged with murder. The 16-year-old, 14-year-old and 12-year-old are facing charges including conspiracy to commit murder and illegal possession of a firearm, but officials said those charges could change.

"We're glas they got the people in that car, but there's no holiday," said Howell's aunt Teresa McCullen. "We don't even realize today is Christmas. No holiday. They took it away." 

Howell was shot in front of his home on Willow Street on Tuesday night as he walked home from a corner store.

”As he was coming up the steps, someone came by and just started shooting and two of the bullets hit him and he ended up just falling inside the house on the floor,” said Gamel Dawkins, Howell's brother.

"My son was right here with the door open," his father Carlton Howell said. "Right here on the floor, and the ambulance guy was pumping his chest. That's the image left in my brain." 

Howell was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

He was a seventh-grader at Bridge Academy in Bridgeport.

Detectives said they do not believe Howell was the intended target, and that it was someone else from the neighborhood was meant to be shot. 

"They knew each other, they had encounters before, and there was back and forth banter on social media," Bridgeport Police Captain Brian Fitzgerald said of the intended target. 

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