Shooting Near Dartmouth: Suspect Arrested

Gage Young’s Booking Photo. Courtesy: Hanover Police Department.

Around 9:45 PM last night, Hanover dispatch received a 911 call informing them of a shooting incident on the sidewalk outside the Christian Science Reading Room in downtown Hanover. A 19-year old male, who is unaffiliated with the College, was injured and taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center where he is now in a stable condition. The victim is from the New England area but is not from New Hampshire. Hanover Police has requested the court for the name of the victim to be sealed for his privacy and to ensure the integrity of the investigation.

Hanover Police chief Charles B. Dennis reported in a press conference today that at 2:47 PM, Hanover Police arrested 22-year old Lebanon NH resident Gage Young for Second Degree Assault, a class B felony.  Young appears to have been traveling through the Town of Hanover when he fired a handgun from a car, injuring the yet-unnamed victim in the lower back. At this point in time, Hanover Police believes that it is an isolated incident and that the assailant did not know the victim. Upper Valley police departments, the Grafton County Sheriff’s Office, New Hampshire State Police, and Hanover Fire Department assisted Hanover Police in responding to the incident.

The assailant, accompanied by a 17-year-old male, was detained after a chase on the northbound section of Route 10 in a black Ford Fusion. They crashed near 60 Oak Ridge Road around 11:30 PM, and were not injured. Hanover Police Department is exploring charges against the 17-year-old male accompanying the assailant at the moment. Hanover Police chief Charles Dennis confirmed that Young is being “held without bail at the Grafton County House of Corrections pending his arraignment on Monday, November 5, 2018, at the Grafton County Superior Court.”

The Christian Science reading room is adjacent to the Sigma Delta Sorority on West Wheelock Street, and across the road from the Theta Delta Chi fraternity house and the Class of 1953 Commons’ parking lot, the largest dining hall on campus. Since the incident occurred on a Hanover street rather than Dartmouth property, the Hanover Police Department is taking lead on the investigation.

The College issued a “shelter in place” alert through DartAlert 30 minutes after the incident, at 10:23 PM, followed by an update at 11:12 PM upgrading the situation to a campus-wide emergency. The lockdown was lifted at 12:46 AM in consultation with the Hanover Police department.

Additional claims of shots being fired were reported by students in the vicinity of the Bones Gate fraternity house and Fahey-McLane cluster around 10:50 PM. Just before midnight,  there were additional reports of multiple shots being fired in Lebanon, near Main Street and Fountain Way. A student staying in the Fahey-McLane Cluster at the time said, “I heard what I thought was a shot.” The student has had experience with firearms in the past, including handguns, and believed that that was what made the sound. “It sounded pretty clearly like a .22 [caliber gun] to me. The only other thing that sounds like that that I can think of is a large branch breaking.”A brother of the Bones Gate fraternity confirmed that he believed he heard a shot.  Hanover Police have confirmed that the suspect used a handgun in the shooting, but at this point, they are not releasing the caliber of the gun. Hanover Police chief Charles Dennis said that while they have found no evidence corroborating the reports, it is part of their ongoing investigations.

At the Hopkins Center for the Arts, students were told to take shelter in place. A janitorial custodian knocked on the door of one of the practice rooms underneath Spaulding auditorium where students were sheltering without identifying himself, causing the students to report it to Hanover Police. Hanover Police chief Charles Dennis confirmed, saying that “Hanover Police responded to the call that someone was knocking on the door where people were sheltering in place. My understanding is [that] it was a custodian that was knocking on the door and didn’t identify himself.”  A student watching the Department of Theatre production ‘Eclipsed’ at the Moore auditorium recounts that “The first incident occurred during the play … afterwards, we just had to wait in the theater for about two hours until the lockdown was lifted.”

Safety and Security did not comment on the request. Hanover town manager Julia Griffin could not be reached for comments. Hanover Police requests anyone with additional information or tips to contact them at 603-643-2222.