Police nabbed two of three people suspected of a string of burglaries, after their getaway car spun out and smashed into a guard rail.
Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman:
Less than an hour into the new year, at 12:50 a.m. Tuesday, Officers Dana Martin and Sean Sullivan were responding to a call when they heard a burglar alarm sounding at Empire Liquor Store on Quinnipiac Avenue. They arrived to find two people running from the store, carrying a safe.
The burglars split up. Cops lost one of them. The other jumped into a waiting white Honda Civic, which sped off with police in pursuit.
The car sped down Quinnipiac Avenue toward Foxon Boulevard. Officer Rosa Melendez, on Foxon Boulevard, saw the car try to maneuver onto the I‑95 ramp. The driver miscalculated and the car spun and smashed into a guard rail. Melendez and Martin handcuffed a 24-year-old woman in the car. A man jumped out, tried to leap over the trunk of the car and tripped down an embankment. Officers Leonardo Soto and Ryan Macuirzynzki grabbed the 36-year-old man, who gave them a fake name.
Officers recovered a cash drawer, a pellet gun, a black face mask, a “Scream” mask, drugs, and bottles of booze.
Cops charged the man with a list of crimes including burglary, interfering, motor vehicle charges, and drug charges. They charged the woman with burglary and conspiracy.
“Detectives Teddy Forbes and Brett Runlett have been working with nearby neighboring departments and predict many other burglaries will be connected to these perpetrators,” Hartman said. “Thus far, the evidence collected has supported investigations into about a half dozen.”
In other police news according to Hartman:
Soon-To-Be-Ex-Husband Shoots Wife’s Car: At 5:36 p.m. on Tuesday, Officer John Pleckaitis and Sergeant Rob Criscuolo were on patrol on Sylvan Avenue near Orchard Street when they heard gunfire. Dispatchers directed them to a house on Orchard Street, where they met a woman who told them her estranged husband had shot her car three times. She told cops that she and her husband are in the process of getting divorced and he is upset that she’s met someone else. The husband had showed up at the house after an all-day barrage of harassing phone calls. She told him to leave. He pulled a gun and fired three shots into the hood of her car.
Later, at 9 p.m., cops spotted the suspect’s car downtown and pulled him over. They found a Smith & Wesson, .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol in the car. They found two bags of crack, six live rounds, and three spent shell casings on the man. Police arrested the 35-year-old a convicted felon on a variety of drug and gun charges.
“Gun!” Woof!: At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Officers Richard Benson, Mark Taylor, Steven Silk and his canine partner Boris responded to a reported fight at the corner of John Williamson Drive and Front Street. Witnesses later told them an argument had turned into a three-on-one fight. Three men had pushed the victim to the ground, kicked and choked him. When he got up, he pulled a gun from his waistband. One of his attackers took the gun and fired it up into the air.
When cops showed up, they found a group of men near a fence. Two took off. One of the two remaining men turned away, revealing a black gun protruding from his pocket. “Gun!” shouted Officer Benson. He tackled the man and retrieved 9mm Luger. Cops arrested that man along with the other, on gun charges and breach of peace.
“Meanwhile, Officer Silk and Boris were on the trail of the two that fled,” Hartman said. “Boris pulled his handler toward some small shrubbery at 2 John Williamson Drive. From beneath them, Officer Silk retrieved a Smith & Wesson 9 Tactical model handgun.”
