Dirt bikers fleeing cops Sunday in Edgewood Park.
The daredevil dirt bike season began with a vroom as renegade riders surrounded a driver’s car, then surrounded a cop car, before zooming away through a park.
The incident unfolded over about 90 minutes Sunday.
Here’s what happened, according to Assistant Police Chief Racheal Cain:
A group of dirt bike and ATV riders were traveling recklessly in the area of Kimberly Avenue and Ella Grasso Boulevard around 4:30 p.m. A husband and wife were in a car; the woman became visibly upset about the danger.
One of the riders noticed this. He wasn’t pleased. He stopped, kicked the car door. He picked up a rock, threatened to throw it at the couple. He and his compatriots circled the car.
They did eventually leave. The couple called the cops, who noticed a foot print on the car. They put out a broadcast with a description of the masked riders.
Fast forward to 6 p.m., across town, to the Exxon gas station at the corner of Whalley Avenue and Fitch Street. An officer saw a group of ATV and dirt bike riders gassing up there. They seemed to fit the description on the broadcast.
The officer radioed in for back-up. He said he would approach the riders to identify them.
Officers arrived to find the first officer still in his car — and the riders back on their vehicles, circling him.
The riders zoomed away, across the street, heading eastbound, onto the grass by the perimeter of Edgewood Park leading up to the New Haven Holocaust Memorial.
The officers followed at first. The supervisor on the radio made it clear there would not be a chase, reported Cain, who on Monday reviewed a recording.
One of the riders was walking his bike. So the officers rode onto the grass to catch up with him and arrest him.
You can see that happen in the above video sent in to the Independent by a reader. (The cops did not have any body camera video because they never got out of their cars, Cain said.)
Before the officers could arrest him, the rider hopped back on his bike and rode away along with the rest of his group.
The officers headed in a different direction to regroup.
The supervisor “clearly says on the radio that they are not going to pursue. He calls the officers to another location,” Cain said.
The officers wrote up what they saw. The police department’s intelligence unit now has those reports and is investigating, according to Cain.
New Haven has a policy of in almost all cases of not chasing dirt bikers, for fear of endangering the riders’ safety, the cops’ safety, and the public’s safety. That policy has prompted debate in town — click here and here to read about what different sides said when the outlaw riding resumed along with the onset of warmer weather last year, and about the dirt bike culture in New Haven. Click here and here to read about a truce struck last year between east side cops and one gang of riders.
The police department does have a group of cops working specifically on building cases against rule-breaking dirt bikers who endanger the public. Lt. Karl Jacobson, who heads the effort (and the intelligence unit), said Monday that the group is about to resume its work this year, especially on Sundays, when the group rides often occur. Jacobson said he’s looking at ways to use technology to build on the group’s tactics.
I wonder what the description of the kids are?