A delivery man told police Wednesday he wrestled a gun away from a would-be customer who tried to rob him of food and money.
Later Wednesday morning, officers found the injured alleged perpetrator of the attempted robbery as he tried to get care at Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to a report from New Haven Police Department spokesperson David Hartman.
Five officers — Steven Spofford, Rafael Ramirez, Esau Ramirez, Nikki Curry, and Richard Gonzalez — responded to a report of gunfire at 147 Colony Rd. in Beaver Hills at 2:51 a.m. Wednesday. The 43-year-old delivery man told them he had gone to the home to deliver pizza. When he got there, a man approached him from the side of the home and pulled out a gun, when the delivery man asked to paid.
The robber demanded the delivery man’s money and said he would shoot him, the man told officers. The delivery man handed over cash and a bag of drinks, but said he did not have a wallet to hand over.
When he sat down to open the glove compartment for the robber, the delivery man “planted his feet on the pavement, braced himself for a struggle, grabbed hold of the perp’s gun and wrestled it from him,” Hartman’s report reads. “The struggle continued until the perp let go of the gun and the victim fired it at him.”
Officers were given the description of the perpetrator and his get-away car.
At 5:12 a.m. Officers Paul Finch and Alex Rivera headed to Yale-New Haven Hospital to investigate a walk-in gunshot victim. Dispatchers had told them they had an injured man dropped off by a man with a gun. Their car was found in the parking lot of the hospital’s Emergency Department and was later impounded as evidence. It matched the description of the get-away car of the Colony Road robbery.
The wounded man in the hospital claimed he had been shot earlier in Hamden at first. Later, after treatment, he admitted he had committed the Colony Road robber.
His charges include criminal possession of a firearm, first-degree robbery, second-degree larceny and first-degree threatening.
Let the poor man go he only wanted the pizza.