A screeching crash brought neighbors outside their homes for a familiar sight — a high-speed car accident at the sloping curve on Yale Avenue.
The crash happened Tuesday evening just east of the corner of West Rock Avenue by the rim of Edgewood Park after a chase involving West Haven police. No injuries were reported.
Tim Holahan saw the crash, which appeared to have totaled a stolen Honda Accord.
“At about 5:35 p.m., I was walking my dog eastbound on Yale Avenue between Central and West Rock, when a black sports car doing at least 55 mph came around the curve of Yale Avenue, heading toward West Rock,” he wrote in an e‑mail. “The car had lost control, its tires were screaming, and it was skidding in the slush on the side of the road. It veered off the road and into the trees at the edge of the park. There was a huge crash as the car hit a large tree and spun back around into the roadway.
“The car sat wrecked and smoking, half in the road, half on the grass. A man dressed in dark clothes jumped out, and ran down the hill into Edgewood Park. A few seconds later, a young woman or girl got out, in time to meet the police car that had been in pursuit. Several other police cars arrived in the next few minutes, and curious neighbors like myself came out to speak with the police. One neighbor who did speak with police said he could see police cars spread out throughout the park, presumably looking for the man who left the scene.”
The noise brought neighbors like John Krenisky and David Sepulveda (at left and right in the top photo) to survey the scene. They’re used to this, they said, recalling crashes at the same spot over the years. One of them killed Jose Cotto, a popular fixture at Sally’s Apizza. When there’s no snow covering the ground, you can see the tire tracks and missing tree bark from past accidents.
“The road is banked the wrong way,” Krenisky said. “So if you came too quickly trying to turn left, [the road] is going to make you want to go straight.”
The driver of the black 2002 Honda Accord was being pursued by the West Haven cops when the crash happened Tuesday night.
The incident began on Derby Avenue in West Haven. The cops there noticed a woman leaving a parked car and entering the Honda Accord on the passenger side, according to the West Haven department’s spokesman, Officer Angelo Moscato. The cops ran a check on the plates and learned that the Ansonia police department had reported the car stolen. The cops followed the driver as he sped away.
After the crash, when the driver fled, the West Haven cops chased the man on foot into Edgewood Park. They failed to find him.
Others spoke with the female passenger left behind. She didn’t know the driver well and had “only a vague amount of information” to offer about him, according to Moscato.
Photography Declared Illegal
Later, during a lull at the scene, one of the West Haven officers rushed at a reporter taking any photos near the scene. “Get out of here! If you take one more picture, you’re under arrest!” barked the cop, Sgt. Ronald Celentano, as the photo of the car at the top of this article was being shot. “You’re interfering with a crime scene.” He declined to explain how taking photographs “interfered” with the scene.
Spokesman Moscato, contacted Wednesday morning, said the department has no rule against reporters taking photographs at crime scenes. He wasn’t familiar with Celentano’s order and arrest threat. Moscato said that if a scene is taped off or if officers are in the process of gathering evidence and sealing off an area (neither of which was the case here), they may restrict people from approaching with cameras. But otherwise, he said, “people do it all the time.”
Moscato said the investigation of the crash and the driver is continuing.
I'm just wondering at the choice of the sensational headline. I would hope your reporters state the facts and the headline writers somehow relate the headline to the story.