NEW BRITAIN: Robber Killed In Shootout

Robber Killed In Shootout At Car Wash
One Victim Was Armed - And Quick On The Draw

August 21, 2002
By KEN BYRON, Courant Staff Writer

NEW BRITAIN -- When Norman Moore and two others pulled into the car wash Monday night on Corbin Avenue, they might have thought the two men by the Oldsmobile were an easy robbery target.

What they got was a shootout that left Moore, 24, dead in a pool of blood.

Moore's two accomplices fled the scene, police Capt. Michael Sullivan said. One of them, an unidentified man, was still at large on Tuesday, but earlier in the day police arrested Rashad Williams, 27, of East Hartford.

Williams was charged with being an accessory to first-degree assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree assault. He was arraigned in New Britain Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon and held in lieu of $750,000 bail.

As Judge William L. Wollenberg put it, Moore's group "was out looking for business, and they got it."

Police said neither of the two men Moore and his companions tried to rob has been charged. The man who shot and killed Moore was carrying the weapon legally, police said.

"Right now there's nothing to indicate that these two men did anything wrong," Sullivan said.

Police would not identify either man.

Moore, a petty crook from Hartford who served time for stealing $400 from a Hartford grocery store in 1999, is the second person to be shot to death in New Britain this year.

Police said that at about 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Moore, Williams and their companion pulled up to the Mr. Auto Wash, a 24-hour self-operated car wash next to one of New Britain's largest housing projects and less than a quarter of a mile away from another one, Malikowski Circle. They saw two men getting ready to wash their Oldsmobile. Williams, Moore and the unidentified man got out of their car and confronted the two to rob them, police said.

One of Williams' group pulled out a gun, but one of the other two was armed and quick on the draw. Police said several shots were fired. When the shooting stopped, Moore was dead and one of the men being robbed was wounded.

The wounded man was taken to an area hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the chest. Sullivan said he was expected to live. Police said the other man was not hurt in the shootout and was at the scene when police arrived.

The green Cadillac that Williams and his companion used to get away was found by police early Tuesday in Hartford. Soon after, a state police trooper pulled Williams over in West Hartford as he was driving west on I-84 in a Toyota. Sullivan said Williams would not tell officers where he was going.

In court, Williams had his bail raised from the $500,000 that had been recommended by State's Attorney Scott Murphy.

Murphy said Williams, who walked into court with the help of a cane, is a flight risk because of his past record and some other pending charges in both Enfield and Wethersfield. Williams is charged with breach of peace and threatening in Enfield Superior Court and is wanted by Wethersfield police, who say he fled in a car after he was pulled over for driving while intoxicated.

In addition, said Murphy, Williams has a past conviction record that includes sale of drugs, racketeering, assault and larceny. His longest jail term was 10 years, of which he served 7½ years, for drug and racketeering convictions, said the prosecutor. Williams will be back in court Sept. 24.

Moore's past brushes with the law include arrests in 1998 for breach of peace and threatening. In 1999, he robbed a grocery store in Hartford of $400. Police were led to him by fingerprints on a can of soda that he left on the store's counter. He was sentenced to two years in jail and was released last September, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction said.

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