RACHEL DERKEN-BRATTON PHOTO
Police take suspect into custody on Livingston Street on May 6.
“I want all of Biden’s family in a body bag!” a Livingston Street tenant calling himself “NEWPOTUS” allegedly posted on social media.
In response, agents swarmed in, nearby homes were evacuated, and a standoff ensued.
Those details are included in an affidavit written by New Haven Police Department Det. Freddy Salmeron about an incident that occurred the morning of May 6.
The affidavit sheds light on what exactly happened that day, from the perspective of the police, and why so many officers were on the street, with their guns drawn, crouching behind cars and bracing themselves for an apparent shootout.
Salmeron wrote that, at approximately 10 a.m. on May 6, Special Agent Christopher Hiriak from the New Haven Secret Service Field Office contacted the city detective regarding an “emotionally disturbed” person. (Per this paper’s policy, the Independent is not publishing the name of the suspect, who has not yet entered a plea in the case.)
City police Dets. Matthew Collier and Salmeron met with Hiriak to discuss a welfare check for this individual. Hiriak told the city detectives that the 21-year-old man had made “several concerning comments on a social media platform and threatened harm against the president of the United States.”
A state police records check showed that this man was already the subject of an active protective order prohibiting him from purchasing or possessing firearms, Salmeron wrote.
Hiriak told the city detectives that the Secret Service intelligence center had flagged down a social media account under the username “NEW POTUS.” The posts that Hiriak showed Collier and Salmeron made references to overtaking the federal government and harming the president and his family.
According to the affidavit, one post by that account from May 2 at 7:43 a.m. read, “I want all of Biden’s family in a body bag!”
Another post, from May 2 at 7:13 p.m., allegedly read, “If you dontmake me the president we will nuke every capitol building every important thing to the government.”
Another post, from May 2 at 7:14 p.m., allegedly read, “Put a bullet in the president brain 20 billion and bitcoin.”
Salmeron wrote that a picture associated with the username “NEWPOTUS” resembled the 21-year-old man’s driver’s license photograph.
Hiriak told the city detectives that this man’s last known address was a four-family house on Livingston Street.
Sound, Threat Of Shotgun; No Firearms Found
Thomas Breen photo
Police close off Livingston Street on May 6.
So, at around 11 a.m. on May 6, dressed in police issued vests with police badges on display, the two city detectives and the Secret Service agent arrived at the home to attempt to speak with the man.
They first spoke with residents of the building’s third floor. They told the officers that they didn’t know a man by the name of the 21-year-old individual. When the officers showed those residents a picture, they said that man lives in the basement apartment.
The detectives and Secret Service agent then entered the rear exterior basement door, which was unlocked and which led to the interior basement apartment’s main door.
They knocked, and a man with no shirt on opened the door. Salmeron recognized the man as the one they were looking for.
The detective wrote that the man opened the door “agitated” and said, “You guys shouldn’t be at my house, step outside.”
The officers went outside to wait for the man to come out.
Instead of leaving the building, however, the man “walked towards us and then shut and locked the exterior door. As he was walking [he] said words to the effect, that he was not coming outside and to talk to the ‘general.’” He then locked himself in his apartment.
Salmeron wrote that Hiriak continued to talk with the man through the shut door: “[H]e continued to yell and refused our request.”
The detective wrote that the man’s yelling was loud enough that a resident from the first floor came outside and told the law enforcement officials he was concerned about the man’s “recent actions and behaviors from days prior.”
Moments later, according to the affidavit, Collier and Hiriak “heard a very distinct sound of what sounded like racking of a pump action shotgun.”
Seconds later, Hiriak heard the man say that “he had a shotgun and would use it to protect his property.”
The two detectives and Secret Service agent then took cover and set up a perimeter around the building. Collier and Hiriak guarded the basement door while Salmeron began evacuating all of the residents from the first, second, and third floors of that Livingston Street building.
Members of the New Haven S.W.A.T. and Hostage Negotiation teams arrived on scene to assist, Salmeron wrote.
City Police Officer Sal Ricci from the city’s hostage negotiation team was able to call the man on his cell phone.
During one of the calls, the man told Ricci that “he called the FBI and the FBI were going to put a bullet in our heads.”
Ricci was eventually able to convince the man to come outside and surrender to the police. Moments later, Salmeron wrote, the man came outside and police took him into custody without further incident.
Salmeron wrote that the man was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital for a medical evaluation.
Still on scene, Hiriak, Collier and Salmeron spoke with a resident of the building, who told the law enforcement officers that the man had moved to the Livingston Street basement apartment a few months prior with a roommate, and that that roommate had moved out a few weeks ago.
The fellow tenant said the man has been “acting strangely,” including by threatening other residents at the house.
On May 6 at 6:30 p.m., city police obtained a search warrant for the basement apartments.
“No firearms, shotguns, rifles, and/or handguns were in the basement apartment,” Salmeron wrote.
Salmeron wrote that the 21-year-old man was slated to be admitted to the Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital on Liberty Street. Hospital staff informed police that the man could be at that location between five to 15 days, if not longer, Salmeron wrote.
City police subsequently charged the man with one felony count of first-degree threatening, one misdemeanor count of interfering with an officer, and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
According to the state’s online court database, the man was released from custody on a promise to appear in court. He is being represented by a public defender. His next court date in this case is scheduled for August.
That same man is also facing two misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace stemming from a separate incident in Norwalk last November, according to the state court database.
Eviction Filed; $1,700-A-Month Basement Apt.
The alleged threats and May 6 standoff didn’t just lead to criminal charges filed against this 21-year-old man. They’ve also led to his landlord suing to evict him from his basement apartment.
According to the state court database, on May 24, the East Rock landlord company NOHU LLC filed a lawsuit in seeking to evict the 21-year-old tenants for being “serious nuisance.”
That’s one of the exceptions built into the state’s current eviction moratorium. Landlords can seek to remove a tenant for inflicting bodily harm or threatening violence to another tenant or the landlord.
The eviction suit states that the tenant started renting the basement apartment for at a rental rate of $1,700 per month starting last December.
It states that the tenant has “created a serious nuisance by threatening the lives of the landlord’s property manager and others” and that he presents “an immediate and serious danger to the safety of the landlord’s property manager and others.”
As evidence, the lawsuit cites emails that the tenant allegedly sent to the property manager on May 5 “wherein the tenant threatened that ‘your lives are in danger.’
“The incident was investigated by the New Haven Police Department and S.W.A.T and resulted in a standoff with police and federal agents on May 6, 2021,” the lawsuit continues. “The building and neighboring building being evacuated until the defendant taken into custody.”
On May 17, the landlord issued a notice for the tenant to leave the premises by May 22, according to the eviction lawsuit.
“Although the time designated in the notice for the defendant to quit possession of the premises has passed, the defendant still continues in possession.”
The eviction lawsuit also alleges that the tenant has not paid the full $1,700 monthly rent for the basement apartment for the month of May, and that he paid only half of the rent owed in April.
Not to gloss over the extent of this young man's mental issues.... but $1700 for a basement apartment!?