Quad Stop Turned Into Gun Arrest

Officer Daniel McLawrence wasn’t even looking for quads when he pulled up to a drag-racing hotspot by Sports Haven on Long Wharf soon before 1 a.m. on a recent Sunday. 

But there one was, just a few feet away. 

A white ATV four-wheeler with red trim was sitting on the wrong side of the road on East Street.

McLawrence couldn’t not say anything to the driver, who appeared to be struggling to get his vehicle to start as other racers sped away without him.

So McLawrence got out of his cop car. He told the driver, who had a gun, not to go anywhere. The driver took off anyway.

Even though the ATV driver escaped on wheels, sans weapon, undercover cops tracked him down to a home on Winthrop Avenue later that same night. 

McLawrence was able to ID the driver, a 33-year-old New Havener, who was subsequently arrested and charged with a handful of felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions, including illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle, criminal possession of a firearm, interfering with an officer, reckless driving, possession of a weapon without a permit, and failure to follow an officer’s signal.

State court records show that the arrestee has been released from custody on a $75,000 bond, and is next slated to appear in court on Nov. 8. He has not yet entered a plea to any of the charges.

That Oct. 8 arrest was one of the latest in what has become a regular drag-racing beat for McLawrence, a 40-year-old Hamden resident who was born in London, raised in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and became a New Haven cop in 2021. Before joining the city’s police force, he worked as a behavioral health associate in the psychiatric emergency room at Coney Island Hospital and as a de-escalation and restraint trainer for New York City’s public hospital system. 

McLawrence’s official assignment is as a patrol officer working the overnight shift in the Hill policing district. He finds himself regularly taking overtime assignments on the city police force’s drag-racing detail. He spends most weekend nights stationed at high-speed hotspots — like Printers Lane in the Hill, or Foxon Boulevard, or Long Wharf Drive and East Street near Sports Haven — trying to deter racing, issue tickets, seize illegal dirt bikes and ATVs, and make arrests when necessary.

Drag racing is dangerous enough when there are just people and street-taking-over vehicles involved. In this case, there was also a gun — albeit one that wound up being unloaded.

“There are too many nights when I’m out there and somebody gets shot” at a drag-racing event, even if they aren’t involved in the racing itself, McLawrence said. ​“At the end of the day, they’re causing havoc. They’re taking over these streets.”

Asst. Chief David Zannelli agreed. He praised the police department for seizing 33 illegal dirt bikes and ATVs so far this year. He lauded McLawrence for his work on the drag-racing detail more broadly, and for his work in this particular case in getting an unregistered gun off the street.

“We are doing this because it’s a priority for the community and the city and us,” Zannelli said about the drag-racing detail. ​“We listened to the community. We’re making our plans based on what they want to see us take action on. We’re coming good [on that promise] and we’re making meaningful arrests.”

Based on interviews with McLawrence and Zannelli and a review of McLawrence’s arrest report, here’s what happened that night:

On Sunday, Oct. 8, at around 12:56 a.m., McLawrence was on ​“routine patrol” in the area of Long Wharf Drive.

McLawrence told the Independent that he had just finished work on a drag-racing detail on Long Wharf, and had transitioned into his regular patrol shift in the Hill. He got a call from a fellow officer who said his car had been clipped downtown by a drag-racing-style car. So McLawrence was on the lookout for such a vehicle.

Because of his experience on the beat, he had a hunch where this car might be.

First, he went to 67 Printers Lane in the Hill near Ella T. Grasso Blvd. As usual per that time of night on a weekend, there was a crowd of people and cars gathered there when McLawrence arrived.

They all dispersed when he arrived. He didn’t see the license plate or type of car he was looking for, so he moved on to the next weekend-night drag-racing hotspot he knew of: the area of Long Wharf Drive and East Street and Water Street near Sports Haven.

Again, upon arriving, McLawrence found a whole bunch of cars and other vehicles, including some dirt bikes and ATVs, on scene. The drivers also dispersed when he showed up.

Well, almost all of them drove away. Except for the operator of a white ATV with red trim, which remained parked facing the wrong direction on East Street.

The driver of that vehicle kept turning around and looking at McLawrence while fidgeting with one of his legs, apparently trying to get the quad to start.

Even though he wasn’t looking for a quad that night, but instead was searching for a different car suspected of hitting a cop car downtown, McLawrence thought to himself as he approached the white ATV: ​“I have to address this.” 

“It’s a public hazard” what these racers do, he said, weaving in and out of traffic, going at high speeds, endangering their lives and the lives of others on the road.

“I exited my marked cruiser to address the [motorized recreational vehicle] infraction,” McLawrence wrote in his reporting officer narrative from Oct. 8, ​“at which time the male became aware of my presence. I stated to the male ​‘stop, do not go anywhere.’ As I attempted to notify dispatch to my location, the male having recognized me as a uniformed officer, immediately began to power the MRV into drive … as he failed to follow this officer’s instruction.”

As the ATV’s operator tried to start the vehicle, McLawrence continued in his written report, ​“I grabbed ahold of the male’s right hand and attempted to remove him from the MRV to stop him from fleeing. The male, managed to free his right hand, at which point I attempted to gain control of his hand once more.”

As McLawrence tried to grab ahold of the driver again, the officer noticed a handgun — a HiPoint 380, with serial number visible — ​“openly displayed on the seat of the MRV where his right hand swung free.”

Seeing the gun sitting right there on the ATV’s seat, as the driver was trying to get the vehicle started, McLawrence thought to himself: ​“The quad doesn’t matter. Secure the gun.”

So he grabbed the gun from the quad, threw it into his police cruiser, and kicked shut his car door and locked it. ​“I don’t know the condition of the gun,” McLawrence remembered thinking. He didn’t know if it was loaded, or if it might go off if jostled. So he decided to remove it right away and get it in his car and out of the area of reach of the ATV driver. 

The driver was then able to start his ATV and, separated from his gun, flee up East Street as McLawrence put out a call to fellow police with a description of the driver and vehicle.

(None of McLawrence’s interaction with the ATV driver that night was captured on body camera video, as McLawrence did not turn on his camera during this incident. He told the Independent that the incident played out too quickly and unexpectedly for him to remember turning it on. He recognized that he should have turned it on, and that he knows now to turn on the camera promptly in future such encounters. Zannelli backed up McLawrence’s failure to turn on his body cam, saying that there is an exemption in the department’s body cam policy that states that an officer doesn’t have to turn on that camera if ​“you’re taking immediate action on something that poses immediate danger,” as he said McLawrence was doing in this case.)

Not long after, McLawrence wrote, he was notified by fellow officers that a man matching the description for the ATV driver had been detained at a house on Winthrop Avenue. McLawrence drove over to that site, and was able to identify the suspect as the same man he had just encountered on Long Wharf. He also saw the same ATV parked in that residence’s driveway. Police seized the ATV and took it to the police training academy and garage on Sherman Parkway, and then arrested the driver.

McLawrence told the Independent that, in his experience, a number of strategies are effective at deterring dangerous and illegal drag race.

Speed bumps work, he said. They’ve worked on Sargent Drive. Some should be put in on Printers Lane or Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, if possible. People spend a lot of money on their drag-racing cars and bikes and quads, he said. They don’t want to wreck them on speed bumps, and so tend to stay away from such areas after speed bumps go in.

McLawrence also said the new regional task force focused on cracking down on dirt bikes and ATVs is also working. It makes seizing illegal street-takeover vehicles easier through information sharing and collaborative law enforcement across towns, he said.

And he said he’s given out plenty of $1,000 fines to racers, as well as tickets to race spectators. 

Nevertheless, there are still plenty of people, mostly from outside of New Haven, who see this city as fertile ground for racing cars, dirt bikes, ATVs, whatever. And they’re going to keep coming.

So, McLawrence said, in pursuit of the top goal of safety, if you do find yourself in a part of the city that is suddenly taken over by dirt bikers and drag racers, don’t get out of the car and pick any fights. Know that you’re going to be late to wherever you’re going. And that police will respond and are doing what they can to stop dangerous drag racing in the future.