Suspect Surrenders After Standoff

Sections

Neighborhoods

Features

Campaign 2013

NHI Newsletter

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

by Staff | Oct 4, 2012 4:52 am

Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Legal Writes

On the trail of a robbery suspect, Officer Brian Pazak pulled up at a house on Clinton Avenue. He felt the hood of the car in the driveway. Still warm.

A woman told him no one had driven the car since the day before, and that her boyfriend wasn’t home.

It turned out she was lying on both counts, according to police: Her boyfriend was home—he had just driven the car back from a robbery.

Here’s what happened according to police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman:

At 10:50 a.m. on Tuesday Officers Pazak and Elvin Rivera responded to a report of an armed robbery at Dover and Atwater streets in Fair Haven. The victim, a 28-year-old man, told them he’d left Bebe’s Market at 604 Ferry St. and a man standing at the corner asked him for a couple of cigarettes. He handed him some smokes and walked off as the man got into a gold car.

The victim walked a couple of blocks then heard a car pulling up behind him—the same gold car. The same cigarette-bumming man got out and grabbed the victim’s backpack.

“What are you doing?” the victim yelled.

“Give me everything you got!” the mugger yelled back. He pulled out a gun and put it to the head of the victim, who handed over some cash.

The robber got back in the car and sped off. As he did, the victim spotted a license plate in the window of the car, different from the one mounted on the bumper.

Officer Pazak ran the plate and got an address on Clinton Avenue. At the house, he and Rivera spotted a gold Ford parked in the back. Its plate belonged on a blue Chevrolet registered to a woman. The hood was still warm.

The landlord told cops that a man had just parked the car, which he said belonged to his tenant, the woman to whom the Chevrolet was registered. The woman came outside and told cops she was the only one who drives the car and that she hadn’t driven it since yesterday.

The cops asked if the woman’s boyfriend was inside. “She lied and said he wasn’t,” Hartman said. “She continued lying as Officers informed her of the robbery and that it involved a gun and her car’s license plate.”

Other cops—including SWAT officers, a hostage negotiator, and a police dog—arrived. They called for the man inside to surrender, but heard no response.

“It was most likely the authoritative barking from Boris, Officer Steven Silk’s shepherd that persuaded [the man] to reveal he was hiding behind a closed door,” Hartman said. “He was taken into custody.”

The man, a convicted felon, was ID’d as the robber. A search of the apartment found a gun with an “obliterated” serial number wrapped in a small child’s jacket, and a clip loaded with ammunition. The robber had given the stolen money to the woman to hide in her purse, Hartman said.

The suspect was charged with robbery, larceny, gun possession by a felon, criminal use of a firearm, and removing marks on a firearm.

The woman was arrested on charges of interfering with police and risk of injury to a child. Her baby was given to a relative after consultation with the state Department of Children and Families.

For block-by-block year-to-date crime info, check the Independent’s crime map.

Comments

There were no comments

New Haven Independent

New Haven Independent Login Form