A Yale University graduate was shot and killed 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 middle of the road, the New Haven Independent reported.
Police found Jiang’s body close to his Prius, which the Independent said had rear damage. Police are investigating whether a car accident preceded the murder.
Jiang, a student at Yale Forestry School, lived nearby with his fiancé and mother, according to the report. He was an active member of State Street’s Trinity Baptist Church, where he was remembered on Sunday as “cheerful, energetic,” and “joyful.”
The victim previously served a stint in the United States military and, according to his LinkedIn page, remained a member of the National Guard at the time of his death.
Yale President Peter Salovey called Jiang “an extraordinary young man.”
The New Haven Police Department is treating this incident as murder and is actively working to arrest the person or persons responsible, Salovey said in a statement.
Jiang is the first Yale student to be murdered in New Haven since 2009, when police found 24-year-old animal research technician Annie Le in a wall in the lab where she worked.
Le’s 44-year-old male colleague eventually joined the crime, and Yale agreed to pay her family $ 3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the university had not adequately protected the women on campus.