Aliyya Swaby Photo
Sreshta with his recovered wheels.
Neil Sreshta has bad luck with bikes. He’s had five bikes stolen in six years living in New Haven.
His sixth time was different, thanks to five Fair Haven and East Rock police officers.
The officers tag-teamed a hunt for Sreshta’s bike last Sunday, eventually finding it while on the scene of an unrelated crime on Grand Avenue. For the first time in his life, Sreshta got a stolen bike back.
Officer Michael Fumiatti, who ultimately caught the thief, was surprised at his luck. “It’s rare to have someone call in and then 15 minutes later, we got the bike,” he said.
Sreshta, an emergency room doctor at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s St. Raphael campus, was hanging out in his living room on Bishop Street Sunday afternoon around 3 p.m. He had fastened his bike to the porch of his house using a cable lock.
Then he heard rattling on the porch. He popped outside to see a man halfway down the street with his jet-black Cannondale commuter bike.
Sreshta started to chase him down Bishop and around the corner on Orange Street. He saw only the back of the man’s head. He could also see that the man was carrying cable cutters in a backpack.
Then he lost him. His girlfriend rode up on her bike, on her way to his house, and he borrowed her bike to search the neighborhood.
He ran into Officer Monique Moore on Humphrey Street just off of Orange Street, and told her what had happened. Officer Moore took Sreshta’s statement and alerted other officers that the bike thief was on the loose.
Unwilling to give up on the search, Sreshta walked from East Rock to the New Haven Green to check if he could see the bike.
In the meantime, officers were spearheading a search on their own.
Paul Bass Photo
Fumiatti.
Officer Fumiatti who patrols in Fair Haven primarily, had a trainee shadowing him Sunday. He planned to respond to more calls than usual, to try to get his trainee exposed to a wider variety of cases. Often, because of the “influx in vehicle break ins and bicycle thefts from residents in East Rock,” Fair Haven officers help them look for suspects, Fumiatti said.
Initially, Sreshta’s neighbor reported to police having seen a suspicious person on Bishop Street. A few minutes later, Sreshta reported his stolen bike.
Fumiatti and his trainee Brian Watrous helped Officers Moore, Daniel Stevens, and Chad Curry search for the bike. But they got called to Farnam Courts, a housing complex on Grand Avenue, after a report of gunfire.
As they drove over from East Rock to Fair Haven, they passed a person cycling down Grand Avenue who looked like the person with the bike Sreshta had described. Still, the “gunshot was our first priority,” Fumiatti said. The report said someone had been shot inside the housing complex.
Fumiatti converged with several other cops at the scene and soon determined there was no sign of an injury. They did find bullet casings at the scene, which corroborated the report of a gunshot.
“While we were in there investigating the gunshot, the guy we ended up arresting is walking the bicycle through the courtyard area,” Fumiatti said. “There were a bunch of cops there so now I had the time to address him. He matched the description perfectly.”
Fumiatti retrieved the bike and apprehended the suspect for the theft. Police charged him with fifth-degree larceny, trespassing and possession of burglar tools.
Bike thefts are common in New Haven. Bike theft recoveries are not.
“Bikes are not like cars, where it’s really distinct,” Fumiatti said. “A lot of people ride bikes around the city. … Unless there’s something unique about the bike, it’s hard for us to recover those.” Often, people sell the bikes on the streets to make a quick $20 to $50.
What made this case different?
“I’m a firm believer that if you’re out there looking for it, you’ll get lucky every once in a while,” Fumiatti said.
Sreshta said he was grateful to have gotten his bike back. “The police recovered it quickly,” he said.
Nice bike. Better get on down to Devil's Gear and get a U lock of some sort.