New Haven Independent

The action-packed ride-along began with call to Livingston Street at about 10:20 a.m. Two sets of neighbors who live in the same house were amid a seething dispute. Donnelly rolled up on his white Cannondale bike, donning a helmet, biking gloves, sneakers and an NHPD polo shirt.

“His cat scratched my daughter!” said an irate 34 year-old man, his 3 or 4 year-old daughter clinging to her mother. “See?” he said, bringing the officers over to his daughter, lifting her shirt to reveal a tiny red dot. The child had visited a doctor and shown no signs of infection, but the father was still concerned about rabies. He refused to speak to the cat-owner, a 36 year-old man with a Yale ID clipped to his shirt. The parties stood yards apart on the sidewalk outside their townhouse.

Officer Gerry Busillo, who patrols in a car, had already reached the scene before Donnelly and was calming down the father. Donnelly talked to the other side. The cat-owner told him the girl was not the only victim in the feud: “Their daughter kicked my cat!” But papers showed the cat was overdue for a rabies vaccine. “Are you going to address the fact that the cat needs to be vaccinated?” pushed Donnelly. The man agreed to go to the vet that day.

At Busillo’s prompting, the father agreed to stop his daughter from “harassing” the cat. He brought the father to the other party and helped them talk the problem out. “Don’t talk to me — talk to him.” They talked. But the father wasn’t satisfied until the furry creature was hauled downstairs for an exam.

Donnelly’s no vet — “I’m allergic to cats!” — but a quick perusal (no frothing mouth) put the complainant a little more at ease. “The cat looks fine, and your daughter looks fine. Everything is going to be fine,” assured Donnelly. “The vet is going to follow up on it.”

“You guys live together, you gotta get along!” called out Busillo as the parties retreated. Clearly there were “underlying factors” deeper than a mere cat scratch, agreed the officers. The bigger task was helping the couples talk out their dispute in a civil way, so the situation wouldn’t escalate when officers rolled away.

Catfight settled, Busillo drove off and Donnelly was free to ride through East Rock streets again, checking in on stores, greeting passersby and giving directions to lost visitors. Except for a morning blowout — tire popped on a nail — he’d had a smooth morning.

Donnelly’s been on the East Rock beat off and on for six or seven years. He’s a familiar face to neighbors, shop-owners and those who pass through the probate court on State Street. On his bike, he gets much more face-to-face contact than in a car. People know him. Some have his cell phone number pasted on the fridge. That’s why they were upset when the bike beat vanished. After neighbor concern over the loss of community policing, the department restored Donnelly to the beat about two weeks ago. Donnelly rides the day shift; a night shift bike patrol was cut back when the roving crime-busting ID-NET squad was formed, he said. The area’s district manager said that beat has also been restored.

“When I got in the car, I lost touch with a lot of people that I used to see every day,” said Donnelly. Now he’s getting his biking legs back and reconnecting with his beat. He starts his day at Dunkin’ Donuts on State Street with coffee and a bagel, checking in with morning regulars. He reckons he talks to 25 people in a brief morning stop. “The more people you know, the smoother things go.”

He checks in with people like Stanley Scott, a notorious protestor who sits outside neighborhood abortion clinics on State Street and Whitney Avenue with a bullhorn and large-lettered signs, often getting arrested for disturbing the peace or harassing women. Donnelly rode up to Scott’s van to say hello. Scott didn’t want to talk much — Donnelly had arrested him recently for putting signs in the street. But the officer keeps in contact with him anyway, so the two don’t talk just when he’s making an arrest. That’s the “community policing” part of the job.

Donnelly rides from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., covering mostly the East Rock neighborhood, from State Street to Whitney Avenue, from Downtown to Hamden. He tends to everything from stolen autos to hold-ups to domestic disputes. He rolls down streets with recent burglary problems, like St. Ronan Street. But if something serious happens nearby, he’ll still get whisked away to the call.

Friday, a call came in that someone had seen an elusive homicide suspect downtown. Levester Myers has been on the loose since Aug. 8, when he is suspected of stabbing his wife to death. A caller said he’d seen Myers at a downtown bus stop, dressed in black in “female Muslim garb.” Dispatch told Donnelly to jump in a patrol car and help Busillo search for the suspect. He ditched his bike at a nearby fire station and waited for a ride. “We could have been there by now,” he remarked after a five-minute wait. The car looped downtown streets with no sign of the suspect, or anyone in drag. Donnelly reported back to his beat.

He stopped by a few State Street businesses to say hello. At the Krissophia Salon on State Street, he was welcomed by salon stylists. The salon owner, whose store has been held up at gunpoint in the past, welcomed Donnelly’s return. “He’s the best! We wish we had him up and down the neighborhood every day!”

He rode on past East Rock’s Rice Field, which he says is always busy with prostitution, male and female. He gives tickets if he sees flagrant indecent acts, but mostly he just keeps a presence there to deter activity. As he rode up, a white car with two men inside turned on the engine and drove away. “I’m not out here to lock people up — I just try to keep it clean.”

As he rolled through more central streets, Donnelly’s radio buzzed with another call: A resident on State Street said they’d heard gunshots in the night. Using handcuffs to lock his bike to his shadower’s, he dismounted and climbed the stairs to a dark apartment — smelling strongly of cats — where a couple described what they’d heard. “Hey! I saw you on the bike the other day,” the complainant greeted Donnelly. The couple described a dozen shots, but no damage. Donnelly searched the sidewalk outside for shell casings, finding none. Later, he’d unzip the satchel on the back of his bike, take out the paperwork and write a report. But for now, he had streets to patrol.