A Facebook Live video of two men brandishing guns while small children played nearby led to those men’s arrests — and to the seizure of six semi-automatic handguns and a rifle by city police.
That’s according to two separate arrest warrant reports written by New Haven Police Det. Francisco Sanchez last Tuesday.
Those two cases involve the arrests of a 23-year-old New Haven man and a 20-year-old New Haven man. City police have charged both men with criminal possession of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a permit, possession of a large capacity magazine, and risk of injury to a minor. They are currently being detained on $300,000 each.
According to Sanchez’s write-up, the catalyst for the arrests was a Facebook Live video stream that showed both men brandishing handguns and a rifle. “Small children could be seen playing in [the] same yard where the Facebook live stream took place,” Sanchez wrote.
Sanchez recognized one of the men as having prior felony convictions, and the other as having an active protective order filed against him.
Neither was legally allowed to possess a firearm.
So city police contacted Connecticut Adult Probation and, through GPS coordinates, were able to identify the man with the convicted felonies as being in the area of a Blatchley Avenue house.
A short time later, several officers with the city police department’s narcotics unit showed up at the Blatchley Avenue three-family house’s rear yard.
As they arrived, “several people started to run in different directions.”
Over the course of the investigation, police wound up arresting the two men, and handcuffing and eventually letting go 10 people who were at the scene.
They also found and seized seven guns in total — some that were in plain sight at the scene that Monday night, some that were hidden throughout the house. Police found the latter after obtaining a search warrant from a judge early Tuesday morning.
According to Sanchez’s write-up, one gun was found in the bathroom ceiling next to the vent fan, two were found wrapped in a t‑shirt inside of the kitchen stove broiler, and another was found in a bag stashed in the basement. Many of the guns seized had live ammunition.
In all, police seized the following weapons from the Blatchley Avenue house: a Steven’s Arms and Tool Co. 22lr rifle, a Glock 26 9mm handgun, a Smith and Wesson SD40 .40 handgun, a Taurus G2C 9mm handgun, a Beretta M9 9mm handgun, and a Ruger P89 9mm handgun.
According to police spokesperson Officer Scott Shumway, the investigation was a collaboration among the city police department’s Shooting Task Force, Criminal Intelligence Unit, Narcotics Enforcement Unit, New Haven Probation, and New Haven patrol officers.
Our great NHPD in action.