The Yale Police Department charged a 16-year-old New Haven male with unlawful discharge of a firearm after he allegedly fired almost a dozen shots near the intersection of York and Crown streets early Monday morning.

Shots rang out at approximately 12:45 a.m. as a large group of teenagers leaving a downtown club gathered along York Street. YPD officers who were waiting nearby to disperse the group responded immediately to the shots, YPD spokesman Lt. Steven Woznyk said. They began a search for the gunman and arrested a suspect shortly after, he added. No one was injured.

The suspect — who was also charged with reckless endangerment in the first degree and carrying a firearm without a permit — was in possession of a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle when he was arrested, Woznyk said.

An employee at a bar close to the site of the shooting said he heard eight to 12 shots fired close to 12:45 a.m. coming from the direction of the Hospital of Saint Raphael Dialysis Center at 150 York St. Minutes before, he had noticed a group of 60 to 85 young people, both male and female, walking along York Street from the direction of Crown Street. Once the shots were fired, the employee said, members of the group screamed and ran into an alley adjoining York Street north of the Dialysis Center.

The employee asked the News to withhold his name and his bar’s name in order to protect himself and his business.

The witness said there were two YPD squad cars parked on either side of the group of teenagers before the shots began, one close to the intersection with Chapel Street and one along Crown Street. The officers in these squad cars had been dispatched in order to “assist with facilitating pedestrian traffic leaving a downtown club,” Woznyk said.

Alongside New Haven Police Department officers, YPD Officers Roderick McLane and Tristan Barnes began to search for the person who had fired the shots, Woznyk said. They found an individual in possession of a gun hiding in an alleyway behind the York Street Noodle House at 166 York St., according to the YPD.

The bar employee said a customer had entered the bar shortly after the shooting and reported seeing bullet casings littering the ground outside of the Dialysis Center.

“This was really freaky,” the employee said about the incident. “That was the last thing we expected. There was no sign of any kind of confrontation before it happened.”