New Haven Independent

Assistant Chief Pete Reichard (pictured) updated reporters in a press conference outside police headquarters about the latest developments in the four fast-breaking stories:

• Police have seized and are preparing to search a Mercedes Benz matching the description of the vehicle steered by the hit-and-run driver who allegedly smashed into a car at Division and Mansfield Streets June 6, killing 15 month-old Montez Stanley Jr. and paralyzing his mother. Police are questioning the car’s owner.

• Police are applying for a warrant for a man suspected of firing the stray bullet that hit 8 year-old Bianda Miller in the buttocks at an outdoor party at the Farnam Courts housing project Saturday afternoon.

• Tipped off by witnesses, police have arrested a 23 year-old man on gun charges and are questioning him in connection with the 1:30 a.m. shooting Saturday of a 11 month-old traveling in a car near the Grand Avenue bridge.

• Both New Haven and New York police are following up on a trail of crimes, dating back to 2005, confessed by a West Haven man arrested Friday night. The crimes include a recent carjacking; a firebombing a week ago at Yale; and assorted robberies. Read about that here.

Montez

Police Monday were drawing up a search warrant for the a dark blue Mercedes Benz CLK-320 coupe that is “real close,” in Reichard’s words, to the description of the vehicle that smashed into the SUV carrying baby Montez Stanley at 10:50 p.m. the Saturday before last.

Waterbury police spotted the car and contacted New Haven cops, who had it towed to the police garage on Sherman Parkway, where it was sitting Monday afternoon. Asked if the car had the front-end dent as described by witnesses, Reichard responded, “It fits the description,” along with “some other information we can’t say. There is information about that car that caused us to seize it.”

Detectives interviewed the Waterbury man who owns the car. “At this point,” Reichard said, “he is not a suspect.” Stay tuned.

Eaveion

Montez was not in a car seat when he was killed. Eaveion Owens, 11 months old, who was shot in a separate incident early Saturday, was in a car seat, according to Reichard.

But car seats don’t stop bullets.

The 11 month-old boy and his mother were rear-seat passengers in a car traveling near the Grand Avenue bridge around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Occupants of that car and another engaged in an apparent shoot-out at East Grand and Quinnipiac Avenues. A bullet grazed the little boy’s temple.

Cops at the time received numerous calls about the gunfire.

At 3:04 a.m. cops received a call from Yale-New Haven’s emergency room. The boy’s mother brought the baby in for care for his injury. At first, according to police, the mother was uncooperative, but she eventually told them they’d be passengers in the car involved in the shoot-out.

Police also got calls leading them to a suspect in that case. A woman reported seeing a gun on the suspect and asking him about the shooting of the little boy.

According to a police warrant affidavit, the suspect told the woman, “If it’s not your baby, don’t worry about it.”

With that information, the police traced the suspect to an apartment at the Farnam Courts projects around midnight.

They found the man leaving the apartment and questioned him. Here’s what happened, according to an arrest warrant on file at State Superior Court Monday:

The officers asked the man if he had a gun in the apartment. He denied it.

“There is no gun. I swear to you,” he told the officers. “Look me in the eyes.”

Instead, they looked in the apartment. There were still three women and two young girls inside the apartment. The officers cleared them out. The woman who rents the apartment, after initial reluctance, led the officers to the bathroom, and to a toilet tank. Inside they found a loaded .357 revolved wrapped inside a “multi-colored plastic” bag.

The man, who’s 23, was arraigned on various gun charges Monday while the cops try to ascertain his precise role in the shoot-out 22 hours earlier, Reichard said. At this point it’s a challenge to figure out who fired which bullet.

Reichard noted the crucial role that citizens played in phoning in information about the suspect. The wave of youth violence — and the gunfire that’s now claiming young child bystanders — won’t stop unless more “people who live in these neighborhoods step up to the plate” by calling the cops (946-6316; 946-6304) with leads.

The baby has been released from the hospital and is in stable condition.

Bianda

The same goes for the 8 year-old girl, Bianda Miller, shot in the buttocks at Farnam Courts at 12:35 p.m. Saturday. (That incident is unrelated to the Grand Avenue bridge area shooting the same day, according to Reichard.)

The girl happened to be among 20 to 30 people outside in the housing project’s courtyard while a party was going on — and a man showed up to confront an ex-girlfriend. He fired a shot that ricocheted off a metal utility box, then hit the girl in the buttocks.

The man fired five more rounds into the air, then fled.

But witnesses on the scene helped cops locate a suspect. Police Monday afternoon were preparing an arrest warrant for him and withholding other information for now.

Would-Be Bridge Bomber?

Meanwhile, Detectives Wayne Bullock, Nicole Natale, Will Cruz and Craig Dixon appear to have hit the jackpot Friday when they picked up a 30 year-old West Haven man at Temple and Chapel Streets.

He matched the description of a man suspected of carrying out a carjacking June 6 at Chapel and Church Streets. They found a homemade “zip gun” and shotgun shells (pictured) on him.

The man ended up confessing to the crime, according to Reichard — and he kept on confessing.

He said he carried out a firebombing last week at Yale’s power plant. In that incident someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at a large brick wall outside a loading area, according to Reichard. No one was injured; workers quickly put out the fire.

The man further confessed to a 2005 New Haven bank robbery, as well as two recent robberies in New York.

For now the police charged him with first-degree robbery, first-degree larceny, robbery involving an occupied motor vehicle, and criminal possession of a firearm. They held him on a $2.5 million bond.

Meanwhile, they notified New York City police, who sent people to interview the man over the weekend.

And New Haven’s bomb squad went out to the Kimberly Avenue bridge to look for evidence of another crime the man said he committed — planting pipe bombs there. The bomb squad worked overnight Friday until 8 a.m. Saturday. They didn’t find any evidence of pipe bombs.

It was while that squad was working early Saturday that the 3:04 a.m. call came in about an 11 month-old getting shot.

Another crew of detectives was awakened to come into work, and remained all day, until midnight, according to Lt. Julie Johnson (pictured), who’s temporarily running the Major Crimes Unit while Lt. Lisa Dadio is out of town.

Then the Farnam Court shooting happened.

All told, detectives were working long hours, and racking up lots of overtime. Most of the detectives have kids of their own, Johnson said, and these crimes hit home.