nothin “D4 Princess” Circles Back | New Haven Independent

D4 Princess” Circles Back

Markeshia Ricks photo

Caitlin Zerella was cruising the neighborhood near the intersection of Derby Avenue and Mead Street when she saw a man riding his bike on the sidewalk.

Zerella debated with herself about whether to stop him.

She followed him slowly. The man kept looking over his shoulder. He also kept rubbing his pocket.

Zerella decided to stop him near Judson Avenue. As soon as she parked and opened her car door, he dropped the bike.

He took off.

And so did she.

He ran between a fence and a house cutting behind the house to avoid Zerella. Instead of following him, she attempted to cut him off as he was coming from behind the house.

He doubled back to hop the fence,” she said. Turns out he had dumped the gun that he apparently was carrying when Zerella stopped him.

During the foot chase, she had been calling out the man’s location and her fellow officers from District 4, who affectionately call her the D4 Princess,” had set up a perimeter. Zerella is the only woman officer working in D4; she said she likes knowing fellow officers have her back.

They treat me like a sister,” she said of her fellow officers. It was definitely a team effort.”

Officer Chris Cameron was leaping from roof to roof like Spiderman,” to keep the runner in sight, Zerella recalled, while Officer Chris Alvarado was positioning himself to help grab the runner.

In an attempt to disguise himself, the man had taken off his shirt and put it over his head. The tactic didn’t work. When he ran out onto Parmalee Avenue, Officer Joseph Galvan was waiting for him. He practically ran right in to Galvan’s arms,” Zerella recalled.

While her fellow officers were wrapping up with the man, Zerella had a new problem on her hands — an irate resident of the home that she had chased the suspect behind.

The Irate Dirtbiker

She and officers Paulius Laukaitus and John Caron were guarding the gun that the running man had ditched in one of the trash cans behind the house. A man came out of the house yelling about a dirt bike and ordering the officers of his property.

People were outside lending their voices to the tension of the moment. Zerella’s focus remained on the yelling man.

I told him to step back, and that we weren’t there about his bike,” she said. But he kept charging at us.”

The man was significantly taller than Zerella and outweighed her. He failed to calm down after Zerella told him he was interfering with and investigation. So Zerella grabbed his wrist to handcuff him. He snatched his arm from her grip; then Laukaitus and Caron tackled him. He too, ended up arrested that day.

Zerella called the gun arrest, and the subsequent arrest of the man from the house, one of the most chaotic experiences of her two and a half years so far on the beat. (Click here to read about her personal story.) She loves the work, she said, especially the community policing part of it, where she gets to be on the street interacting with people and is encouraged to follow up with them after difficult encounters.

Which is how this one story would end this Tuesday, two weeks later.

The Bathroom Bandit

Zerella was busy Tuesday arresting another man who thought it a wise idea to run from her.

When she approached him about his bike-riding habits, he tried to ride away. On foot, Zerella chased down the man, who had been riding a bike the wrong way on Chapel Street.

With Zerella hot on his heels on foot, and Officer Robert Hayden following on a bike, the man ducked into a Day Street housing complex, and quickly managed to break into a woman’s home.

That was a mistake.

Zerella and Hayden found his bike in front of an apartment. The woman who lives in the apartment that he broke into was home, but had been upstairs. She didn’t think anyone else was in her apartment. When the officers asked if they could take a look inside, and she agreed. There they found him, hiding behind a bathroom door.

His illegal entry into the woman’s home earned him a one-way ticket to police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., and earned Zerella high fives from veteran officers Hayden and Elsa Berrios.

The 28-year-old Zerella, who has been working in the Dwight/Kensington neighborhood for about two and a half years, said such arrests are becoming her standard day at the office. This type of thing seems to happen all of the time,” she said.

Replay

But what doesn’t happen all the time is getting the opportunity to shake hands with someone you recently arrested. That’s exactly what Zerella got to do when she returned to Judson Avenue following Tuesday’s arrest.

She saw the man who had confronted her on the day she chased the man who allegedly dumped the gun. He came outside to sit on the front porch with two other men.

Are you feeling calmer today?” she asked the man, after introducing herself to him and the other two men.

Yeah,” he said, I’m cool.”

The two talked about what happened. The man said people nearby in the neighborhood told him that the police were behind his house, possibly looking for his dirt bike. I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

I told you we weren’t there about your bike,” she said.

How was I supposed to know?” he asked.

She told him if he had stayed calm, he would have heard her saying that the officers were there guarding evidence.

No hard feelings about the other day?” she asked the man.

Nah,” he said. We’re cool.”

We’d be cooler,” he added, if you come to court and tell them to drop the charges.”

Read other installments in the Independent’s Cop of the Week” series: 

Shafiq Abdussabur
Craig Alston & Billy White Jr.
• Joseph Aurora
James Baker
Lloyd Barrett
Elsa Berrios
Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
Paul Bicki
Paul Bicki (2)
Sheree Biros
Bitang
Scott Branfuhr
Bridget Brosnahan
Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia
Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia (2)
Dennis Burgh
Anthony Campbell
Darryl Cargill & Matt Wynne
Elizabeth Chomka & Becky Fowler
Rob Clark & Joe Roberts
Sydney Collier
Carlos Conceicao
Carlos Conceicao (2)
Carlos Conceicao and Josh Kyle
David Coppola
Mike Criscuolo
Steve Cunningham and Timothy Janus
Roy Davis
Joe Dease
Milton DeJesus
Milton DeJesus (2)
Brian Donnelly
Anthony Duff
Robert DuPont
Jeremie Elliott and Scott Shumway
Jeremie Elliott (2)
Jose Escobar Sr.
Bertram Ettienne
Bertram Ettienne (2)
Martin Feliciano & Lou DeCrescenzo
Paul Finch
Jeffrey Fletcher
Renee Forte
Marco Francia
Michael Fumiatti
William Gargone
William Gargone & Mike Torre
Derek Gartner
Derek Gartner & Ryan Macuirzynski
Tom Glynn & Matt Williams
Jon Haddad & Daniela Rodriguez
Michael Haines & Brendan Borer
Michael Haines & Brendan Borer (2)
Dan Hartnett
Ray Hassett
Robert Hayden
Robin Higgins
Ronnell Higgins
William Hurley & Eddie Morrone
Derek Huelsman
Racheal Inconiglios
Juan Ingles
Paul Kenney
Hilda Kilpatrick
Herb Johnson
John Kaczor & Alex Morgillo
Jillian Knox
Peter Krause
Peter Krause (2)
Amanda Leyda
Rob Levy
Anthony Maio
Dana Martin
Reggie McGlotten
Steve McMorris
Juan Monzon
Matt Myers
Carlos and Tiffany Ortiz
Chris Perrone
Ron Perry
Joe Pettola
Diego Quintero and Elvin Rivera
Ryan Przybylski
Stephanie Redding
Tony Reyes
David Rivera
Luis & David Rivera
Luis Rivera (2)
Salvador Rodriguez
Salvador Rodriguez (2)
Brett Runlett
David Runlett
Betsy Segui & Manmeet Colon
Allen Smith
Marcus Tavares
Martin Tchakirides
David Totino
Stephan Torquati
Gene Trotman Jr.
* Elisa Tuozzoli
Kelly Turner
Lars Vallin (& Xander)
Dave Vega & Rafael Ramirez
Earl Reed
Daophet Sangxayarath & Jessee Buccaro
Arpad Tolnay
John Velleca
Manuella Vensel
Holly Wasilewski
Holly Wasilewski (2)
Alan Wenk
Stephanija VanWilgen
Elizabeth White & Allyn Wright
Matt Williams
Michael Wuchek
Michael Wuchek (2)
David Zannelli
Cailtin Zerella
Caitlin Zerella, Derek Huelsman, David Diaz, Derek Werner, Nicholas Katz, and Paul Mandel
David Zaweski

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