Just two days after the New Haven Police Department announced it had made an arrest in the year’s 26th murder case, the Elm City saw one more homicide Thursday morning.

Edward Thompson, 37, was found with gunshot wounds by NHPD officers who responded to a report of a shooting near Grand Avenue and Lloyd Street at 12.30 a.m. Thompson was taken to the hospital but was later pronounced dead, according to a NHPD press release. His death bring’s New Haven’s murder count this year to 27 —three more than last year and the highest total since 1994.

The NHPD’s Major Crimes Unit has launched an investigation into the murder, though the department’s spokesman, David Hartman, said he could not comment beyond the press release because the investigation is still in its preliminary stages.

While Hartman said he found the city’s murder count sobering, he cautioned against reading too much into any particular year’s murder count.

“Statistics alone don’t indicate how violent the community is,” he said.

A stabbing near one of New Haven’s two trauma centers would be more likely to be treated and subsequently count in the NHPD’s records as an assault, he explained. Meanwhile, for someone sustaining similar injuries farther away, particularly with longer EMS response times and distance to a trauma center, “what would have been an assault is now a homicide,” he said.

Thursday’s murder follows Tuesday’s arrest of Kmel Davis, 19, in connection with the killing of Melvin Galloway, 31. Davis turned himself in peacefully after witnesses and neighbors helped identify him as a suspect.

That case was the 18th homicide the NHPD has closed this year.