Police officers made back-to-back captures of four men int two separate cases.
On Wednesday at 6:54 p.m., undercover officers were in the Rt. 80 area, following up on gunfire investigations from a week earlier on Bouchet Lane (at Eastern Circle). Task Force officers were at the ready and deployed to prevent any retaliation.
Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman:
At this time, Sgt. Roy Davis took a call from someone who described a green Acura SUV that was “loaded down” with armed occupants. The caller said the Acura just pulled on to Bouchet Lane.
Davis relayed the message to officers in that area, including those on the department’s Shooting Task Force and Criminal Intelligence Unit. Task Force Officers Carlos Alverado and Ryan Macuirzynski rounded the corner and spotted a green Acura SUV. They also spotted the driver, who is well known to Macuirzynski.
The SUV was on the move. Alverado and Macuirzynski followed as they requested marked police units to the area. State police were alerted as the Acura headed toward I‑91.
As the marked patrol cars showed up, the driver sped up. He refused to pull over. He had two young men in the car with him. The SUV – now learned to have been stolen in East Haven — was being driven recklessly. The officers backed off and lost sight of it as it got off the interstate at Exit 13N.
Officers positioned themselves southbound on-ramps in case the perps doubled back, according to Hartman. At 7:20 p.m., the Acura was spotted by police in the Westville neighborhood.
After a short pursuit, the driver crashed into a utility pole on McKinley Avenue at West Elm Street.
Armed with a black colored handgun, the driver sprinted from the immobilized SUV. After about 15 minutes of searching, the driver was routed from his hiding place in the yard of 245 Alston Ave. and taken into custody.
His two 16-year-old accomplices were also apprehended – one in the back yard of 344 McKinley Ave., and the other, who never made it out of the SUV.
One of the teens, who lives in the West Hills neighborhood and was first arrested for narcotics when he was 13, had crack cocaine and Oxycodone pills in his pocket. He was charged with second-degree larceny, interfering with police and two drug crimes.
The other teen, who lives in the Fair Haven neighborhood and has prior arrests including for sexual assault, possession of child pornography, risk of injury to a minor and first degree unlawful restraint, was charged with second degree larceny and interfering with police. They were each given juvenile summons’ and handed over to their parents.
The driver was taken to police headquarters for a sit-down with detectives. There, he admitted having a gun in his hand when he ran from the crash. He would later lead officers to the location he’d thrown it. A police canine named Magnum sniffed it out from a pile of leaves in the back yard of 240 McKinley Ave. It was the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson.
The driver is not a convicted felon but carries a misdemeanor handgun disqualification. He was charged with criminal possession of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a permit, weapon in a motor vehicle, risk of injury to a minor, reckless endangerment in the first degree, reckless driving, second degree larceny, operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, engaging police in a pursuit, interfering with police and criminal trover in the second degree.
Man Nabbed Fleeing From Stolen BMW
On Thursday, at the early second shift roll-call, Officers Gregory Dash and David Diaz took notes on recent developments in their district from the shift commander. Included was information that a black BMW sedan had been used during a cell-phone robbery on Mansfield Street the day before. The officers scribbled the plate number into their notes and headed out to their patrol.
Here’s what subsequently happened, according to Hartman.
Three and a half hours later, the BMW passed the officers heading south on Norton Street toward Chapel Street. The plate matched. So the officers made a U‑turn to go after the car.
The car disappeared from their sights.
Officers Thomas Glynn and Matthew Curran heard Dash’s call and spotted the car on Winthrop Avenue. The driver Dash and Diaz had spotted was standing at the front door to an apartment house in the 300 block.
Diaz called out to the driver, who was believed to be in the apartment house. Cops surrounded it. Officers Derek Werner and Michael Maciver joined them.
The residents of the house told the officers that the man was an intruder. They let the officers in to search for him. Glynn and Curran found him sitting on the staircase to the third-floor apartment. They cuffed him and took him outside.
A second-floor tenant told the officers she didn’t know the man, who she said barged in and ran through her apartment. She said she was startled and asked what was going on. She said she told him to leave.
The BMW was stolen from a woman in Middletown. The plate didn’t belong on the car.
The driver has been charged with second-degree burglary, second-degree larceny, interfering with police and the misuse of a marker. Detectives are working on the case to see if he is one of the three who perpetrated the earlier robbery.
The car was impounded. Its owner came to the police garage and signed the paperwork authorizing a search and forensic examination.
