He Didn’t Back Down

On his belt he had a gun. A baton. Mace. But when he suddenly had to wrestle an armed and intoxicated armed 270-pound man in the dark amid oncoming traffic on Route 80, Officer David Totino could use only one weapon: his hands.

The result: A scene out of WWE Raw, only for real, with potential life-or-death consequences.

Totino (pictured above) didn’t expect to end up having to fight his way to safety and an arrest the old-fashioned way; it all happened so fast.

In five years on the police force, Totino had already found himself in that situation twice before (including this episode). He knew what he had to do, he said: Keep swinging. And pray the oncoming drivers would see him and stop their cars.

“He doesn’t back down from anybody,” observed his boss, top East Shore cop Sgt. Vinnie Anastasio.

Street Fight

Totino, who is 29 and does not watch WWE, expected to find people fighting when he responded to a call at the Sunoco station at Quinnipiac Avenue and Route 80 on Sunday, March 2.

It was almost six hours into Totino’s 4 p.m. to midnight shift. He was patrolling District 9 (the East Shore and Fair Haven Heights), his home base for all but eight months of his career as a New Haven cop, in a cruiser with a rookie cop-in-training named Matt Collier. The call on the radio reported a fight in progress at the Sunoco involving a group of men all dressed in red.

“Bloods,” Totino concluded as they drove to the scene.

Usually members of that gang ​“are discreet,” he said. ​“They don’t usually come out in the open and represent.”

As the officers pulled into the Sunoco lot they saw 10 young men in their 20s nonchalantly emerging from inside the station. They all had on red hoodies.

Collier hopped out and detained two of the men. Totino headed for a 27-year-old man he knows from the beat, nicknamed Dwayne. The other seven or so young men scrammed.

Totino and Dwayne get along, Totino said. Dwayne has a reputation as a major player in the east side’s drug world; he has served time on a felony weapons conviction and pleaded guilty to drug and larceny charges. Totino has locked him up before. He has also cut Dwayne a few breaks. Dwayne generally offers Totino respectful greetings when they pass each other outside, say, a downtown club where Totino works extra-duty.

Playing nonchalant, Dwayne offered a respectful greeting now as Totino approached him at Sunoco.

“Totino!” he called. ​“What’s up?” He was visibly intoxicated, according to Totino.

“Come here,” Totino recalled saying. Dwayne backed off. Totino grabbed Dwayne’s arm. Dwayne pulled away with a ​“Fuck that!” to Totino, Totino recalled.

At that point, according to Totino, Dwayne took a swing at Totino, grazing the back of his head. Totion swung back with a punch to the face. Fighting, the two stumbled, fell together right into the westbound lane of that public raceway known as Route 80, just in front of the light at Quinnipiac Avenue.

Totino couldn’t reach for his belt, couldn’t get his mace or his baton or his gun; he needed his hands free to prevent Dwayne from getting on top of him. A thought entered his mind: ​“We’re going to get hit by a car.” He hoped drivers would notice them before it was too late.

Dwayne, though apparently inebriated, did have two inches and 35 pounds on Totino. Totino lifts weights five days a week at a local gym.

In other words, it was a fair fight.

Totino managed to land on top of Dwayne. ​“I tried to flip him over.” He succeeded in getting Dwayne on his stomach.

Dwayne managed to get up onto his knees — carrying Totino into the air on top of him, WWE-style.

Officer-in-training Collier rushed over to help; the two young men he had detained now fled.

“I’m in the air. I try to choke him to get him on the ground, try to trip his arms up,” Totino recalled of his subsequent maneuvers.

Instead, Dwayne slipped away and started to run. Totino resorted to an old-fashioned move: He tripped Dwayne. Dwayne fell — crash! — back onto the mat .… er, pavement … on his side. Collier grabbed Dwayne’s arm.

Dwayne ​“was flailing his arms at me. He’s swinging up; I returned with a couple of shots. I’m winded,” Totino said.

“You Guys Need Help?”

At that point an oil-truck driver pulled up to the intersection. He saw the fight — and stopped in time. Then he jumped out of his truck, into the ring.

“You guys need help?” he asked.

“Yes!” Totino called out. ​“Just stand on his feet.”

The man did. The officers got the cuffs on Dwayne.

“I’m done. I’m done. I’m done,” Dwayne said.

Everyone moved to the sidewalk. Dwayne returned to old Dwayne.

“Why’d you do that?” Totino recalled Dwayne asking him. ​“You and me were good.”

“Why’d you swing at me?” Totino responded.

“I wouldn’t do that to you! I have a lot of respect for you,” Dwayne said, Totino recalled.

Dwayne offered no resistance as the officers searched him. They found a Taurus .38 revolver. It had five bullets inside.

So that’s why Dwayne tried to bolt, Totino thought. He had figured Dwayne had something to hide.

“Man,” Totino remembered Dwayne explaining, ​“I just need protection out here. You know that.”

“Dude,” Totino asked him, ​“is that gonna come back dirty?”

“Man, I don’t even know where that came from.” (It would turn out that the gun had been reported stolen in East Haven in 2011.)

As they all walked to the cruiser to drive to police headquarters, Dwayne offered another helpful piece of information, according to Totino: ​“Listen. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve got some drugs on me.”

Then — plop — out fell a sandwich bag containing 15 tiny plastic bags prepackaged with crack. Dwayne had been hiding it in his anus — a common tactic among street dealers, according to Totino. No customer complaints? ​“Crack fiends, they don’t ever ask questions,” claimed Totino, who worked as a licensed heating and A/C installer before becoming a cop.

The whole fight on Route 80 lasted maybe five seconds, Totino said. ​“It went from zero to 100 like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. ​“It felt like a lifetime.”

Who Was That Truck Driver?

Totino spent the rest of the shift on paperwork. Police charged Dwayne with nine firearms, assault, and narcotics offenses. He remains in jail on $75,000 bond. He has a public defender; he has not yet entered a plea.

Totino slightly re-injured his left bicep, which he’d hurt in a previous fight. This time it would cost him only a few days off the job.

Driving home after midnight to Wallingford, the town where he grew up, Totino replayed the events of the evening. As with the previous two times he ended up in fights on the job, he didn’t second-guess his actions.

“I will never back down from a challenge on the street,” he said. ​“That’s just part of the job, staying committed to what I’m doing. Once I set my mind on stopping someone, backing away will only get someone hurt. Not only just me. Another officer. A bystander. Who knows? If I didn’t stop him like I did, there could have been a shooting the next night.”

He did reflect on how the tussle could have ended up worse, far worse. He reflected on how it could have turned out better — if he had had a Taser, and the Taser worked, he might have been able to subdue Dwayne as soon as Dwayne pulled away from him upon that initial grab.

He also regretted that he had never gotten the Good Samaritan’s name before the man drove off. Totino would have liked to have thanked him.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Anastasio said, he has asked that Totino get a Taser as soon as a new batch comes in.

Read other installments in the Independent’s ​“Cop of the Week” series: 

• Shafiq Abdussabur
• Craig Alston & Billy White Jr.
• James Baker
• Lloyd Barrett
• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
• Paul Bicki
• Paul Bicki (2)
• Sheree Biros
• Bitang
• Scott Branfuhr
• Dennis Burgh
• Anthony Campbell
• Rob Clark & Joe Roberts
• Sydney Collier
• Carlos Conceicao
• Carlos Conceicao and Josh Kyle
• David Coppola
• Roy Davis
• Joe Dease
• Milton DeJesus
• Brian Donnelly
• Anthony Duff
• Robert DuPont
• Jeremie Elliott and Scott Shumway
• Jose Escobar Sr.
• Bertram Etienne
• Martin Feliciano & Lou DeCrescenzo
• Paul Finch
• Jeffrey Fletcher
• Renee Forte
• Marco Francia
• William Gargone
• William Gargone & Mike Torre
• Derek Gartner
• Derek Gartner & Ryan Macuirzynski
• Jon Haddad & Daniela Rodriguez
• Dan Hartnett
• Ray Hassett
• Robert Hayden
• Robin Higgins
• Ronnell Higgins
• William Hurley & Eddie Morrone
• Racheal Inconiglios
• Juan Ingles
• Paul Kenney
• Hilda Kilpatrick
• Herb Johnson
• John Kaczor & Alex Morgillo
• Jillian Knox
• Peter Krause
• Peter Krause (2)
• Amanda Leyda
• Rob Levy
• Anthony Maio
• Dana Martin
• Steve McMorris
• Juan Monzon
• Chris Perrone
• Ron Perry
• Joe Pettola
• Diego Quintero and Elvin Rivera
• Stephanie Redding
• Tony Reyes
• David Rivera
• Luis & David Rivera
• Luis Rivera (2)
• Salvador Rodriguez
• Salvador Rodriguez (2)
• Brett Runlett
• David Runlett
• Allen Smith
• Marcus Tavares
• Martin Tchakirides
• Stephan Torquati
• Gene Trotman Jr.
• Kelly Turner
• Lars Vallin (& Xander)
• John Velleca
• Manuella Vensel
• Holly Wasilewski
• Holly Wasilewski (2)
• Alan Wenk
• Stephanija VanWilgen
• Matt Williams
• Michael Wuchek
• Michael Wuchek (2)
• David Zannelli
• David Zaweski