New Haven Independent

The brawl took place around 2 p.m. Wednesday by the corner of Congress Avenue and Redfield Street, a crossroads of the Hill neighborhood that has become calmer in recent months thanks to community policing.

Police received several calls about the brawl and rushed over. When they arrived, the crowd on the street dispersed. The combatants fled in various directions. Cops chased, to no avail.

So they proceeded to piece together what happened.

The fight began at Crystal Bell’s doorstep at the Congress Homes complex, then spilled down the sidewalk onto the street. The dispute apparently began between Bell’s grown daughter, who lives with her; and another young woman related to the people next door.

“We were getting ready to go to a funeral,” Bell said, “and they went crazy over ten dollars!” Click here to watch her reaction.

The people next door declined to speak to a reporter. They did speak to Sgt. Holly Wasilewski after she finished getting Crystal Bell’s family’s side of the story.

Afterwards, Wasilewski, manager of the Hill North district, gave this summary of the case:

Bell’s daughter had her hair done Tuesday by the young woman related to people next door. Bell’s daughter paid most of the money; she told the young woman to return at 7 p.m. Wednesday to pick up the final $10.

The woman showed up five hours early and apparently demanded the money. An argument broke out. A group of young men visiting next door were with the young woman. They had baseball bats. A fight ensued. Crystal Bell’s son came outside and tried to break up the fight.

He apparently got clobbered on the arm with a bat. The shouting and swinging had now spilled onto the street. Neighbors called the cops.

“He’s on the way to the hospital,” Wasilewski said of Bell’s son. “He’s holding his elbow. His elbow may be broken.”

Cops proceeded to investigate the case further, seeking to identify and track down the alleged culprits.

At least no one got shot. The same corner had two shootings in March. In true community policing fashion, Wasilewski learned from neighbors that much of the trouble on the block stemmed from people hanging outside a barber shop across the street from Bell’s home — then went to work.

“I shut them down two months ago,” Wasilewski (pictured) said. “Nobody in there had a [barber’s] license. One of the illegal barbers got caught with a pound of marijuana.” Since then, violence has abated on the block, she said. She also noted that neighbors have worked hard to pick up trash and keep the sidewalks clean.

Watching the investigation unfold on Congress Avenue Wednesday afternoon was Officer Anthony Santarcangelo. He’s in charge of prison transport for the police department. He had the wagon ready to transport suspects.

As he waited, Santarcangelo reminisced about his 31 years on the force. He started out patrolling this very neighborhood. Back then, the block across the street from the Bell family’s apartment had the old Hull’s brewery. “They used to get the water from a natural spring underneath the building to make the beer,” Santarcangelo recalled. The factory was already vacant by the time Santarcangelo began patrolling there in the mid-’70s. The Congress Homes complex, single-entry two-story apartments spread across several blocks, came on line in 1983, government-subsidized showpieces of a smaller-scale affordable housing policy.

Santarcangelo has been assigned to prisoner transport for the past four years. “I like it,” he said, “because I cover most of the city. I transport prisoners all over the state of Connecticut. You get to see the court system and how reports are processed. You see how important the paperwork is for the system to function.”

On this afternoon, Santarcangelo wasn’t going to have any prisoners to transport from Congress Avenue. “It was just a run of the mill fight,” he observed. “Thank God there was no shooting.”