Updated at 6:48 p.m.
An innocent bystander was seriously injured early Monday after a man fired two gunshots into a crowd on Main Street in Burlington shortly after bars closed for the night, according to police.
Officers on patrol just after 2 a.m. heard the shots and caught 37-year-old Rashad Nashid not far from the shooting scene outside of Nectar’s, police said in a statement. Nashid, a convicted felon, was allegedly intoxicated and armed with a .38-caliber Ruger pistol when a Burlington police sergeant arrested him on South Winooski Street.
“The chief of police would like to commend the sergeant for his bravery and restraint in confronting an armed, intoxicated suspect in the direct aftermath of a shooting, and the other responding officers for safely bringing order to a dangerous and chaotic crime scene,” the department said in a statement.
Nashid was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He appeared in federal court later Monday and was ordered held until his trial. Nashid faces up to 10 years in prison.
The 26-year-old victim was shot in the lung and is in serious condition, but she is expected to survive, according to police.
“She does not have any known ties to the suspect,” police said in a statement.
Nashid told police he’d been drinking at Nectar’s before the shooting. An “unknown male” that Nashid knew from an altercation a year earlier approached him outside of the bar, according to federal authorities.
“The defendant pulled out a gun and shot at the male in order to make the male ‘back down,'” the feds said in a statement. “The bullet instead struck an innocent bystander who happened to be standing on the sidewalk near the defendant.”
Nashid has several previous felony convictions in New Jersey, federal authorities said.
Nashid is also facing felony drug charges in Burlington and had been out of prison on conditions ahead of his trial. Cops investigating a woman’s overdose death arrested Nashid and three others in September at a Pearl Street apartment where police allegedly found 50 grams of crack cocaine, 25 grams of powdered cocaine, five grams of heroin, $5,000 cash and a loaded .357 revolver.
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Thanks Bernie Sanders Vermont has steadily gone down hill since you arrived…….please go back to New York City…..
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people drugs don’t kill people people kill people,……. that being said if someone is let out on bail and they do this shit,……..right to prison and lose the fucking key no one instilled the golden rule to this individual do not kill. His behavior more than suggest he will kill soon. I don’t know if an ankle bracelet / taser combo would work but maybe we should have a panic button we can push that would drop the felon if he wore an (ankle bracelet / taser combo).
gee is TOO EASY TO GET A GUN OR WHAT?
In Miro and Brandon’s eyes, the best approach is to eliminate the inanimate object, except for themselves to own.
Coleyc how is it racist to point out the fact that Mr. Nashid was already connected to a crime that involved drugs and a firearm and he should have been in jail not out on the streets. You say that drugs are causing many of the problems our state is experiencing and I agree with you on that. So how does standing up for someone no matter what color they are that is providing the drugs solving the problem. Its not racist to hold a criminal accountable. But it is niave to go around accusing others that are just as concerned about the states problems of being racist.
I also find it hard to believe that a bunch of people that want to remove the guns from law abiding citizens are defending a criminal that used a gun to harm an innocent person.
Several of the commenters here have criticized myself and snow creek for wanting the system to hold violent offenders accountable. Some have gone as far to accuse snow creek of being involved in the KKK, to those of you that want to turn our want for a safe place to live and work into us be racist I say its time to come to reality. This country is a land of law and order and if laws are not to be followed what is the point of living here. Maybe all the denounces want to live in a lawless country where no one is safe. Sound like a real nice place. Reminds me of lovely Syria or one of the shitholes Trump referred. And yes people lost of other countries on this planet are shitholes and several of you want to turn America into one.
Snow Creek, dont you have a KKK meeting to attend? Thankfully the moderators pulled you disgusting comments. Seems youd be more at home with other like minded racists and conspiracy theory wackos over at Infowars or similar nutcase website.