Meet me in the alley, the woman instructed.
The man complied.
Bad move.
He thought he was heading for a date. Instead, he headed toward a gunpoint robbery.
So reported police spokesman Officer David Hartman. Here’s what he said happened:
A 27-year-old Waterbury man met a woman online. They agreed to meet in New Haven. She said she’d be waiting by an alley next to a building on Winthrop Avenue.
He showed up early on Saturday morning. She wasn’t there. A man with a gun was there instead.
The man attacked him. They struggled; the attacker’s gun flew away. The victim broke free, ran to his 2000 black Honda Civic. The attacker chased him, got the car, drove off.
Officers Kenneth Cobb, Nikki Curry and James Evarts went to the scene to investigate. They found witnesses who described the attack. They also located surveillance video that captured.
That afternoon at 1:53, Officer David Rivera spotted the car, “filled with people,” traveling down East Street toward Humphrey. He coordinated with other officers to stop the car. The driver of the stolen car, spotting a cruiser, sped off. Officers followed.
The driver crashed the Honda on Sherman Avenue. Occupants ran off. Cops caught two of them, a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old New Haven man. They were charged with illegal drug possession. No charges yet for the carjacking.
Armed Man Chased, Caught
Ina separate incident around 11 p.m. Saturday, officers responding to a crowded fight at Scranton and Greenwood streets in West River saw a man holding a gun. The man refused a command to drop the gun, instead running off, scaling a fence through back yards, according to Hartman. Once Officers Endri Dragoi and Anthony Tarantino caught up with him and arrested him, he no longer had the gun; Officer Joe Roberts and his K‑9 eventually found it.
The arrestee, a 35-year-old New Haven man, claimed that the gun wasn’t his, that he’d been pistol-whipped. Cops charged him with interfering; gun possession charges remain under review.
