Just three days after New Haven had its first homicide of 2012, a second man was shot and killed Tuesday evening.

New Haven Police Department officers patrolling around Valley Street heard shots at 11:06 p.m. Shortly after, they located a “black male victim with several gunshot wounds” lying on the ground in front of 58 Hilltop Place in the West Rock neighborhood, according to department spokesman David Hartman. The man, who Hartman said was “in his late teens or early twenties,” was pronounced dead at the scene.

NHPD detectives from the Major Crimes Unit immediately launched an investigation, talking with neighbors and collecting forensic evidence, Hartman said, though the victim of the homicide has yet to be identified.

Tuesday evening’s murder is the second in four days. The first homicide, which broke a streak of more than two months without a homicide, took place Saturday morning. In the first homicide, a “black male, suspected to be in his late teens or early 20s,” was found dead in a silver Range Rover near the intersection of County and Munson Streets in Dixwell.

At this time last year, the city had recorded seven murders — en route to a 20-year high 34 murders.