A 24-year-old New Haven woman was lucky to escape a more serious end to a domestic dispute over the weekend. Her quick thinking also probably saved her from further harm.
At 1:22 a.m. Sunday, Officers Andrew Tomer, Omar Thomas and Michael Hinton were dispatched to investigate a reported domestic dispute at an apartment building in the 1100 block of Quinnipiac Avenue. Dispatchers reported a complaint of a man who had pistol-whipped his girlfriend, according to a press release from police department spokesman Officer David Hartman.
The victim met the officers at the front door. She told them that her assailant was asleep in an upstairs bedroom and that she’d taken his gun and hid it from him. Officers Thomas and Hinton went upstairs and handcuffed the suspect while Officer Tomer confiscated the gun.
The victim said she had been visiting a friend when the gunman showed up. She said she didn’t want him causing trouble at her friend’s home, so the two went to her home. She said the 29-year-old man, who lives on East Ramsdell Street in New Haven, was drunk. She said he pushed her several times, Hartman wrote in the release.
The victim told officers that the man demanded she retrieve something for him from the refrigerator. When she went to get it, she said, he pointed a handgun to her head and threatened to kill her. She said when she turned around to face him, he pistol-whipped her in the forehead.
She said the man told her to go upstairs. He followed. Soon after lying in the bed, the victim said, her assailant fell asleep. She said she seized the opportunity to take his gun from him and call police. The victim has a restraining order against the man, according to Hartman. The gun, a Reck P8 KAL 6.35 mm, was loaded and reportedly stolen from Cedar Falls, Iowa.
The alleged assailant is a convicted felon. He was charged with threatening in the second degree, assault in the second degree, breach of peace in the second degree, violation of a protection order, carrying a pistol without a permit, criminal possession of a pistol and possession of a stolen firearm.
