Police flooded the Quinnipiac Meadows neighborhood late Sunday afternoon in response to a home invasion. With the help of a police dog named “Axe,” they tracked down the two alleged perpetrators and arrested them.
Here’s what happened, in the words of police spokesman Officer David Hartman:
“At 4:58 p.m., officers rushed to the area of Donna Drive and Barnes Avenue after a caller reported passing a man holding a knife.
“When officers arrived, they spotted him – knife in hand. They ordered him to drop it. He complied and was detained. As this was going on, a woman ran from the front door of 45 Barnes Avenue. Her arms were raised above her head and her hands were bound with a heavy-duty zip-tie. Both she and the detained man were asking the officers for help.
“In broken English, the 24-year-old man and 43-year-old woman told the officers that two armed intruders had forced their way inside their home. The male victim was pistol-whipped on his forehead by the butt of one of the intruder’s gun. The woman had her hands bound.
“The officers requested additional assistance including a Spanish speaking officer, and radioed for EMTs to be dispatched to attend to the victims.
“A witness came forward and spoke with police. He described the two men he’d seen trying to access his back yard. He said he confronted them but the men hopped another fence and headed in the direction of the Ross Woodward School on Barnes Avenue. The witness said he spotted the two men beneath a tree. He said one reached into his waistband and removed an object. He said the man placed it in a tree and the two disappeared from his sight.
“Officers flooded the area. A perimeter was set up and the search was on. One officer found and recovered a fully loaded black .40 caliber handgun from a branch about seven feet high in the tree that was described by the witness. On the ground below it, they found an extended police-style black metal baton. About an hour into the investigation, Officer Martin Feliciano and his K‑9 ‘Axe’ were engaged it a fresh scent search for the perps. It paid off when they found a discarded cell phone and then two men hiding in a close-by swamp.”
The female victim positively identified the two men, who hail from Elizabeth, N.J. and are 26 and 43 years old. Police charged them with “home invasion, second degree assault, first degree robbery, first degree unlawful restraint, first degree reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a firearm, carrying a dangerous weapon, two counts each of second degree breach of peace and conspiracy to commit all of the aforementioned crimes.”
In an unrelated incident, nine bullets flew near a vigil for a recent murder victim, held Saturday night on Dewitt Street in the Hill, according to Hartman. Two men later showed up to hospitals with gunshot wounds. Police went to speak with the men, who are 38 and 40 years old and have criminal histories. Neither cooperated with police, Hartman said.
