Above: "Sidebar Converation: Carl Welden." An interview with Carl Welden. Filmed and produced by Brandon Quinn. Interview by Sandra Hamlett.
The Flash of a Muzzle
The sequence of events on the morning of June 22, 2001 are as clear as they were almost 10 years ago.
Carl Welden, 39, a performance artist, grows quiet as he arrives on Church Street surveying the street. He is no longer in 2011. He bends slightly, bringing his hands up to his left shoulder, demonstrating how he carried his drums as he walked home.
He freezes, pointing ahead to the parking lot behind Neko Sushi where he heard a series shots and saw the flash of a rifle muzzle. Welden took shelter behind a van parked on the street. Then Jared Bozydaj fired a number of rounds into the building behind him.
Welden demonstrates with eery precision Bozydaj’s movements -- his bent knees, his wide stance, his body hugging the wall, his arm holding the Intrac semi-automatic rifle at hip level as he scanned the streets.
“The street was so quiet,” he says. “Then there was the very distinct sound of a magazine being released and another one being slapped in and the bolt being returned. So this impression immediately hit me, "Oh, this isn’t over.'"
Police finally subdued Bozydaj after 90 minutes. Bozydaj had two fully loaded 30-round magazines on his body and two more were hidden in a nearby alley.
A State of Normal
Afterward, Welden’s life became divided into pre-shooting and post-shooting.
Welden spoke to a reporter after the shooting calling Bozydaj "crazy." Friends of Bozydaj berated him.
“They might not have been in town that day,” he said. “But they were like, 'Hey, why did you call Jared crazy?' And I was like, 'Well, he didn’t fire a bunch of shots at your building.'”
He tried to bring his creativity and humor to the situation by stenciling, I Survived the Church Street Shooting on pieces of fabric and handing them out to those who also went through the experience. But then this backfired.
Welden had a stranger confront him outside of Snugs, a bar that was a frequent haunt of Bozydaj. The man was angry, believing Welden was making fun of Bozydaj.
“People were giving me this attitude,” he said. “And I was like, 'You can cope by buying a drink. I’m going to make art.'”
Others wanted to politicize the shooting by condemning gun ownership. Welden, a member of the National Rifle Association and Arts for Peace, views the issue as more complicated. For him, blaming guns is like blaming a car for a driver’s recklessness.
In the aftermath Welden realized life was not returning to normal. Friends who had gone through the shooting seemed unscathed. They were wondering why he was so freaked out and Welden was wondering why they were not.
A little before July 4th, less than two weeks after the shooting, Welden knew something was wrong.
He sat down to eat with the cast of "Arm of the Sea" after one of their performances when someone set off firecrackers.
“Suddenly I was backstage sitting up on a ladder,” he says, shaking his head at the memory. “The rest of the cast was calling, ‘Carl! Carl!’ I had gotten up, left the table, run backstage, and climbed to the top of a ladder at the sound. I didn’t remember doing it.”
Welden contacted Ulster County Crime Victims Assistance. They helped him recognize the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“I can’t liken myself to somebody who was in combat,” says Welden. “But if I listen to what somebody who has been, I identify with it. Then I’m like, 'Oh, this is normal for someone in an extra-normal situation. I wasn’t crazy.'”
Welden credits Crime Victims Assistance with helping him confront the emotions churning inside him. As an artist, he recognized his sensitivity to the darker aspects of personality. Bozydaj’s actions that night felt too close for comfort.
“I struggled with all of this,” he confessed. “I think this galvanized my mind from ever going there. There are moments when I might have considered doing something like that. It made me realize I could never do it.”
Welden has been able to move past that night, although it is never forgotten. Welden recently went on Facebook and was surprised when Bozydaj’s name popped up as a friend suggestion. He was even more shocked to discover that they shared a large number of mutual friends. This should not be surprising, since New Paltz is a small community. Welden and Bozydaj both attended New Paltz High School, in different years. Bozydaj lived around the corner from Welden’s apartment.
“I don’t know him,” Welden said. “But I no longer hold him in a place of anger.”
Welden wishes Bozydaj well as he looks back on that morning. He points to the corner of Church and Main Streets where a trash can used to sit riddled with bullet holes.
“I could sit on the stoop and just tell glory-day stories about that night,” he says, smiling, as his steps inside his car on his way to pick up his daughter from school. “Or I can say these are the incidents that happened and turn that into something creative. I’ve made some good come out of this in my life. I’m in a better place after the shooting.”
This article is part of a multimedia report on the June 21, 2001 shooting in New Paltz by the Spring 2011 Feature Writing class at SUNY New Paltz.
