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(Updated 4:07 p.m.) Maybe a gang of teens did attack the 49-year-old man left bloodied in the street after a scooter robbery. Or maybe a car hit him first. The evidence so far fails to support either theory, according to police — though the victim’s coworkers are convinced a beating did take place.
City police continue to investigate the bloody incident that occurred on Goffe Street near County Street between 4 and 4:30 p.m. this past Friday.
The case has turned into a mystery.
The victim, Brooks MacQuarrie, is a service technician at New Haven Power Sports nearby on Whalley Avenue.
He is recovering from severe injuries in the incident, including a broken eye socket, broken nose, severe head wounds, and broken ribs.
“It’s done. It’s over with,” Power Sports General Manager Chris Green said Tuesday afternoon. “We don’t want this to be turned into a political football or a race football.”
MacQuarrie, whom Green described as a gentle six-foot-five, 275-pound father of five who “has never been in a fight in his life,” had just finished repairing a “candy-apple” scooter Friday afternoon when he took it out for a test drive. He turned onto Orchard, then onto Goffe.
What happened next is the mystery.
MacQuarrie ended up barely conscious and bathed in blood in the middle of the street. Traffic stopped. Several women (pictured above) raced to help him. One called for a shirt to wipe the blood. One spoke with him. Someone called 911.
And some young people rode off with the scooter.
The initial report to the police came in as a pedestrian struck, presumably by a vehicle..
MacQuarrie went to the hospital, where doctors put staples in his head and treated his nose, his head wounds, his ribs and his eye socket.
Sgt. Max Joyner, the Beaver Hills neighborhoods’ top cop, rushed to the scene. He spoke to three women, two of whom said they were nurses who tried to help the victim.
“They said all they saw was a crowd. People started walking away. They saw two black males standing over a white male. They couldn’t say they witnessed a scooter jacking. They saw a commotion. They couldn’t see the details.”
Based on initial accounts, police reported that a gang of teens had rushed MacQuarrie, “pushed him from the moving scooter, assaulted him and fled with the scooter, leaving him bleeding in the road.”
“I was 30 seconds down the street. I pulled right up. And I can’t tell you what happened,” Joyner said Tuesday. Usually, in a pedestrian-struck case, he’ll see skid marks on the street or other physical evidence. Not in this case.
Detectives joined the investigation. So far no witnesses have reported seeing the whole episode, according to Sgt. Robert Lawlor Jr., the head of the robbery and burglary unit. No witnesses actually saw MacQuarrie get pushed off the scooter. Someone reported seeing two vehicles speed away, a green car and a dark-colored Acura. Someone reported that young men were yelling, “Get him off the bike! Get him off the bike!”
For his part, MacQuarrie remembers a young man on a bicycle coming at him with an “angry look” in his eye, according to coworker Green. He remembers trying to avoid eye contact with the person. He remembers getting hit on the back of the head. After that, he remembers nothing of the incident. MacQuarrie himself has chosen not to speak with the media; he doesn’t want to enflame controversy. He has not yet returned to work.
A report from doctors at the hospital has further complicated the picture, Sgt. Lawlor said Tuesday.
They called the extent of MacQuarrie’s injuries “inconsistent” with a quick beating, too severe. However, no physical evidence at the scene pointed to a prior collision between the scooter and a car, either. Police found a four-inch piece of plastic near the scene, but that wasn’t conclusive, according to Lawlor.
Was the theft of the scooter a “crime of opportunity?” Lawlor asked.
“As of right this second, there’s no proof of a mob beating. It’s very unclear what occurred. They either pushed him off the bike and beat him, which there’s no evidence of; or a car hit him. There’s no evidence of this either.”
Manager Green of Power Sports argued that there’s no way a car collision took place.
“The body of the scooter is made of plastic. The scooter doesn’t weigh anything,” Green said.
“Brooks is an expert racer with over 40 years of racing at an expert level. We have seen the scooter, and there is no damage to it except minor scrapes. Had it been hit by a car hard enough for Brooks to lose control, the damage would be much more severe and unrideable.”
Brooks said that other techs in his shop have come close to ending up in similar spots while riding on Goffe Street. They’ve “come close to getting jumped at the same spot.”
All the same, Green said, he and his staff and MacQuarrie’s family feared that the incident would blow up into a public controversy. They don’t want that to happen. “We just wanted to thank the people that did lend assistance to Brooks” at the scene. He especially appealed for people to leave race out of discussion of the incident. (MacQuarrie is white. The alleged scooter-stealers, black.) “I don’t care if it was five black kids [jumping him], five white kids, five Irish kids. Regardless of who did it, it’s terrible. … It was an unfortunate incident.”
Next steps: Police are interviewing MacQuarrie again. They recovered the scooter Friday night: Two undercover cops spotted two young men riding it near the Hamden shopping plaza on Dixwell Avenue and followed them into Newhallville. When other cops arrived, the young men ditched the scooter and fled. Police have a lead on the suspects. Lawlor said detectives hope to be able to interview them.
Meanwhile, a commenter identified as “thankfulmom” posted the following message on the Independent’s first story of this incident: “My thanks to the women who stopped to help my son. I cannot say how grateful I am. Thank the Lord for our many blessings and your help made our family so blessed to have him home. May God bless you.”
If there's no debris, there was no collision with a car. Both are made of metal, glass and plastic and would have left some debris behind.
My guess is that a kid darted in front of the scooter, the rider braked hard and flew over the handlebars (head injury and elbow rash) and the kids went off with the scooter. Other than him being dragged off the scooter at a stop (unlikely midblock) its the scenario most likely to leave the scooter relatively unharmed.