Cops arrested a 32-year-old man last Monday after a 5‑year-old girl found a revolver beneath her pillow as she spent the night at her father’s home.
Officer Matt Williams was dispatched to a home in Hamden after the girl’s mother called to report the incident, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman.
“She told the officer her daughter had been staying the weekend with her father in New Haven. She said her daughter waited until Monday to tell her she’d found the handgun beneath her pillow. The mother said she knew her child’s father had a handgun and confirmed she’d seen it before,” Hartman’s report stated.
Officer Williams went to the apartment on Sherman Avenue and arrested the father, a 32-year-old man on probation for drug crimes, charging him with criminal possession of a firearm. Detectives then served the father with a search and seizure warrant and found a “loaded Colt ‘Detective Special’ .38 caliber revolver in a bedroom. Mixed in amid children’s toys and clothes, Detectives found drugs and drug packaging materials.”
The detectives charged the man with “several narcotics crimes.” His criminal history includes “multiple entries for risk of injury to a child, multiple entries for probation violations, escape from custody and drug crimes.”
Meanwhile, this Monday, Oct. 12, an officer found a couple in their twenties dead in a running car.
According to Hartman, Officer Arpad Tolnay was in the middle of a routine check of 200 Orchard St. parking garage when he saw a black VW Jetta parked on the first level with its engine running. He opened the door and “was overwhelmed with the smell of exhaust.”
A 28-year-old man was in the front seat and a 20-year-old woman was in the back seat. EMTs could not revive either of them. An investigation by the medical examiner’s office revealed the “deaths were accidental — most likely the result of carbon monoxide poisoning. There were no signs of trauma to either. Detectives investigating the case discovered a blown out tire and a damaged line that connected the engine to the exhaust system. Detectives are awaiting the final report from the [medical examiner’s] office.”
