Community Corner

'The Angels Were With Us' At Shelley's Garden Center During Siege

When the bullets began to fly, the Chambers family, owners of the noted nursery, helped police even as they hid for safety as gunshots rang.

BRANFORD, CT - On the corner of Main Street and Home Place is an oasis. A green and many-colored lush Eden-type garden where the Chambers family has sown seeds and good will in the community for 70 years.

Tuesday, the bucolic beauty and tranquility that is Shelley’s Garden Center, was shattered when the bullets began to fly.

A police standoff in Branford Tuesday saw one person shot and ended with the suspect dead, officials said. Police had the suspect barricaded inside a second floor apartment at 241 Main Street for hours.

Find out what's happening in Branfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Read that full story here.

Shelley's Garden Center is right next door.

Find out what's happening in Branfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When the pandemic began in March 2020, Patch spent a couple of hours with the Chambers family, in particular Taylor Lee Chambers-Scussel, who advised that bringing plants into one’s home during lockdown may help fight both the blues and the virus.

In a phone interview Wednesday morning with Chambers-Scussel, she described what her family went through as the house next door was the epicenter of an active shooter incident.

It was a beautiful spring early afternoon. Chambers-Scussel’s daughters were out in the back of the center playing with their puppies. The Chambers, who’d been waiting for a delayed, and large order, that was late being delivered and it had finally arrived. In the driveway of the nursery were stacked pallets packed with soil and dry goods, the center’s forklift and truck, too. Normally, it would not have been so filled as they keep their center open and airy so customers are free to roam. Tuesday it was a very good thing that all this was stacked, piled and parked.

“Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.”

The bullets that flew struck the truck, blowing out a window. That truck, she said, provided protection and limited the shooter’s visibility.

At first, they thought it was fireworks but soon realized they were gunshots. Chambers-Scussel, her daughters, the family dog and a customer, a woman who’d never been before but had recently tested negative for COVID-19 was there to buy flowers and then off to visit her mother, ran for cover to the part of the shop where dog beds are stored. Chambers-Scussel said it was the safest place as it’s all concrete with large furniture pieces around. As they huddled in fear, albeit with Chambers-Scussel calming demeanor setting the tone for her children, they shots continued to ring out: the “ping, ping” of the bullets going through metal, striking the forklift and plant carts.

They were trembling with fear.

Chambers-Scussel said that she could tell the difference in the sound of the bullet discharges; different firearms were being used. She said that she waited for the opportunity to run to the upstairs, her grandmother’s house. It was when the alleged shooter reloaded, she said. They ran to safety.

“It was very Twilight Zone,” she said. “We waited for a reload and ran as fast as we could upstairs to our grandmother's house.”

Her father John Chambers often helped the man who lived on the second floor at 241 Main St. They all knew him. He was a “bit different,” she said. John Chambers was on the phone with police in the first few minutes. He could see the man through a window. He could see the firearm. He’d positioned himself behind a just-delivered pile of soil. Chambers-Scussel said her dad had a direct line of sight and saw the man with a long gun. He told police what he could see and directed them as best he could. Within a very few minutes, police arrived.

Meanwhile, Chambers-Scussel, her children and the customer were upstairs, safe, she said, in their grandmother’s home. With a “birds-eye view” of the seven-hour siege. When it was over, they were escorted to their car by police and went home.

“The angels were with us.”

In the light of a new day, Chambers-Scussel’s voice was calm, reflective but confident.

“God watched over us all,” Chambers-Scussel said. “My daughters are resilient warriors. We’re raising them in the true eye of the world. We had a plan. We’ve talked about these things. We’re educated. While it was completely chaotic, it was safe and controlled. I just had to be calm.” And strong, sure and upbeat despite the trauma.

That’s the family’s way, she said. And, she said, “The angels were with us.”

“It was so real, so close and so scary and in our sanctuary, our little happy place. It felt far too close to home. I’m grateful that we were able to handle the situation calmly. We’re a disgustingly optimistic family,” she said.

“None of us are Debbie downers. We try to make the best out of every situation. If it was going to happen to a family, ours is the one because it happened and it isn’t going to haunt us," Chambers-Scussel said. "We’ll continue to be as grateful as we’ve always been.”

Chambers-Scussel said that her family has the “highest respect” for law enforcement and the military and that she and her children “felt safe” once police arrived. They know the faces of the officers. Her daughters, she said, “knew they wouldn’t let anything happen to us.”


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