Thomas MacMillan Photo
Sgt. Doug Harkins was on patrol when he spotted a man walking with a familiar gait — one that he’d seen just hours before in video footage from a purse snatching.
Harkins (pictured) followed the man and made an arrest Monday behind an abandoned church on Union Avenue. Police say that arrest resulted in a confession to a rip-and-run mugging at the State Street train station on Saturday.
Here’s what happened, according to Harkins and police spokesman Joe Avery:
At 2 p.m. on Saturday, a 33-year-old woman was waiting alone for a Metro North train at the State Street train station near Chapel Street. A man with a handgun accosted her and grabbed her purse. After a struggle in which he dragged her, the man ran off with her pocketbook.
Metropolitan Transportation Administration (MTA) police investigated the incident and shared surveillance footage of the incident with New Haven police. Sgt. Doug Harkins, of the Street Interdiction Unit, watched the video on Monday.
Later that day, at around 6:30 p.m., Harkins was on patrol in an unmarked car on Church Street South near Columbus Avenue when he spotted a man that looked familiar.
“I recognized him almost immediately,” Harkins said. “What really gave it away was his gait.” He had the same slightly bobbing way of walking as the man in the video. He also had the same close-cropped hair.
“This is the guy!” Harkins recalled thinking.
He pulled over and called for other units, but everyone was busy. He stayed on the guy by himself, watching him head down and back Station Court into the housing project, then head south on Church Street. Near the corner on Union Avenue, the guy disappeared. He seemed to have jumped a wall behind the abandoned Seventh Day Adventist church at the corner.
Harkins, who was a supervisor in the Hill neighborhood before joining the Street Interdiction Unit, looped around to Carlisle Street and Liberty Street to catch the guy popping out on the other side of the block. But he never showed.
Harkins drove back to the church, parked in the lot, and headed cautiously around back. With his gun drawn, he turned a corner and found the man standing with his back to a boarded over sliding door. It was the guy from the video. He ordered him to the ground and took him into custody.
The 34-year-old man confessed to MTA detectives and was charged with robbery, larceny, and carrying a fake gun. The MTA found the fake gun on the tracks, along with the woman’s purse.
In other purse-snatching news, according to Yale Assistant Police Chief Ronnell Higgins:
On Tuesday at 2:20 p.m., a female Yale undergrad was near Prospect Street and Prospect Place when a man approached her and demanded her shoulder bag. The student refused and ran away without injury.
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It bothers me that in both stories, the women resisted giving up their purses. Granted, the guy in the first incident had a fake gun and the person in the second incident didn't pursue the victim, but that's taking a big chance.
Personally, this has never happened to me and I sure would hate giving up my purse, but I also don't want to be dragged across the ground, or have something worse happen.