Updated at 5:05 p.m.
A 21-year-old man died Thursday night after he was shot in the head on Luck Street in Burlington’s Old North End, according to city police.
The shooting is Burlington’s first homicide in more than two years, Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a Friday morning press release.
Police identified the victim as Hussein Mubarak, who lived near where the incident took place, Acting Deputy Police Chief Wade Labrecque said.
Labrecque said police believe the suspect may have fled north from Luck Street into the wooded area of the Intervale. A lengthy search for the suspect Thursday night involving police dogs and a Vermont State Police drone did not yield any results, he said.
Labrecque said police do not believe there is any danger to the public.
“We’re fairly confident that the two people — the victim and whoever the shooter was — knew each other,” he said in an interview.
Police said they received a call about shots fired in the area of Luck Street and Intervale Avenue at about 7:45 p.m. Thursday. Labrecque said officers found Mubarak lying in the grass median in front of 44 Luck St. after he was struck in the head by at least two rounds. Officials have not yet determined the type of gun that was used.
Mubarak died just before midnight Friday after being taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center, according to Labrecque.
At about 11 a.m. Friday, Luck Street was quiet except for the occasional car driving by. Earl Bombard III, who lives just up the street from where the shooting happened, recalled hearing several loud bangs.
“My family thought it was fireworks going off next door,” he said. “Then my brother came downstairs and said somebody got shot.”
There were several orange flowers placed in the grass median outside 44 Luck St.
The shooting is Burlington’s 16th gunfire incident of 2022. The number of times guns were recklessly fired in the city this year is on a steep rise, data show.
Burlington police distinguish between gunfire incidents and shootings; the latter indicates that someone has been struck. As of early June, Burlington had recorded four shootings in 2022 — as many as the city had in each of the past two years.
Weinberger said Friday that the incident was “part of a very disturbing trend.”
“We offer condolences to the victim’s family and those mourning him,” the mayor said.
The site of Friday’s shooting is a block north of Burlington’s Roosevelt Park, where a shooting in early June injured David Berezniak, a former city councilor. Berezniak was struck in the head by shrapnel while sitting in his backyard, he told VTDigger.
Labrecque said the department is not more concerned about gunfire in the Old North End compared to other neighborhoods, since the two recent shootings do not appear to be related, and both appear to have involved people who knew each other.
He said the department’s investigation into the Luck Street shooting is still in its early stages and more information would be released if it becomes available.
