Shooting Victim Dies

Christopher Fain, a 19-year-old man shot in the buttocks Saturday night on Dixwell Avenue, died in the hospital Monday.

Detectives are working leads in the case but don’t yet have any suspects, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman. Someone reported seeing Fain riding a bicycle on Dixwell toward Hamden before the shooting.

In another incident, firefighters extracted three women from a Ford Taurus after it struck a tree at Lombard and Monroe streets in Fair Haven around 3:50 a.m. Monday. The three women — the driver and her cousin and sister — are in the hospital in critical condition, according to Hartman. Officers Rose Dell and Dennis Mastriano of the department’s Crash Investigation Team have begun investigating.

Hartman also gave the following account of some rowdy behavior at Black Bear Saloon on College Street Friday afternoon:

Around 3 p.m. a woman left the saloon to smoke a cigarette outside. She left her purse at the bar. It was gone when she returned. A bartender watched surveillance footage, which showed which patron had allegedly taken it. The alleged thief came out of a bathroom, saw the victim, dropped the purse, ran outside. Someone called the cops, and Officers Matthew Wynn and Martin Podsiad caught the alleged thief on Chapel Street.

The alleged thief, who’s 42 years old, grew upset and ​“combative” while being brought to a police car, spitting in the face of top downtown cop Lt. Rebecca Sweeney and other officers and kicking. Sweeney pepper-sprayed her in the face. The suspect then ​“kicked out the window and bent the door on the police car.” She’s in a whole lot of trouble now.