(Updated 8:16 p.m. with Club Static’s version.)
As Crown Street’s bars let out, a fight erupted between two men — then turned into an anti-police brawl that left eight cops injured, with bottles raining from the Temple Street Garage.
The brawl occurred between 1:30 and 2 a.m. Saturday — the weekend witching hour downtown, when bars close, drunken clubgoers pour into the streets outside nightclub row and the potential for mayhem always looms.
To Police Chief James Lewis, the whole mess points up the need to create a downtown “entertainment district” where cops plan ahead for big events and charge clubowners to police them adequately.
The owner of the Crown Street bar Static, Michael Andrews, said he saw what happened, because he and an extra-duty cop were standing outside the front door.
He said he saw bouncers from the club next door, Hula Hanks, eject two drunken patrons.
The two men were fighting. Then cops (including Andrews’ extra-duty cop) went over to break it up. At that point the two patrons “definitely attacked the cops,” Andrews said.
That gibed with an account from another eyewitness.
According to this eyewitness, Officer Roy Davis tried to pull one man off the other. That man, a 29-year-old from Wallingford, then turned and went after Davis.
“He completely overpowered” Davis, the eyewitness reported. “He flipped him on his back” and jumped on top of him.
“As I reached for my baton, I realized my duty belt had unclasped and was now off my waist, being held only by a belt-keeper,” Davis later wrote in a report. “The male continued to choke my throat and punch my face.”
Davis called for help.
Up came Officer Chris Fennessy to help. The drunken bar patron “threw Fennessy off like a rag doll.”
Next came Officer William Gargone. He succeeded in pulling the attacker off Davis.
It took a bunch of reinforcements until the cops had the initial brawlers under control, handcuffed, and arrested.
Meanwhile, other fights were breaking out along Crown Street. Other cops were targeted for attack. Above the street, from the decks of the Temple garage, onlookers started tossing bottles — from every level, according to Chief Lewis. Sirens from cruisers heading to the brawl awoke Lewis, who lives nearby (until Friday, when he retires and moves back to Wisconsin).
“That happens every weekend,” Lewis said of the bottle-tossing. “But not to this degree.”
State cops showed up with a police dog named Trooper Neo. The dog succeeded in getting much of the crowd to disperse, according to police spokesman Officer Joe Avery. One brawler wouldn’t leave.
That last man “tried to kick the dog,” reported the eyewitness. “He yelled, ‘Get out of here! I’ll fucking kill you!’ — to the dog!”
The would-be dog-kicker was pepper-sprayed, arrested, and placed in a police cruiser. He allegedly kicked out a window before being taken to the station for booking.
The state pooch proved “a huge asset. It really calmed it down, except for this one knucklehead that went after the dog,” Lewis said.
In subduing the crowd, officers used three or four canisters of Mace and “driven stunned” (touched at close range rather than shot at) one brawler with a Taser, according to the chief.
Eight officers went to the hospital to be examined, and all were released without major injuries, according to Lewis. The officers were Fennessy, Davis, William Gargone, J. Marshall, Derek Gartner, Matthew Williams, Edrick Agosto, and Ryan Przybylski.
Police arrested nine alleged brawlers, eight males and one female. The charges ranged from disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer to criminal mischief.
Post-Holdowns?
Chief Lewis said initial reports indicated a larger than usual crowd was on Crown Street because the club Static was holding a lingerie party.
A similar brawl happened outside the club in December, prompting Alderwoman Jackie James-Evans to call for an end to underage nights at downtown clubs.
Lewis said Static had hired an extra-duty cop for the night. That might have proved enough for other occasions, but the lingerie event drew a bigger crowd that proved harder to handle.
In any event, having clubs hire their own extra-duty cops doesn’t work well in these situations, the chief argued. Because that officer works for one clubowner, and is tied to that location. Trouble often develops outside the bar, on the street.
Lewis has been pushing two alternatives to New Haven’s long-running system — in which favored cops get “hold-downs,” or exclusive gigs, with individual clubs. Those cops then get to decide which other cops get to work those lucrative extra-duty shifts. Lewis prevailed in having the hold-down system eliminated (after going to arbitration) in the new police contract. That system is slated to end March 1. The police department will now handle extra-duty assignments. (Read about that here.)
Lewis would like to see New Haven go one step further by creating a downtown “entertainment district.” Club owners would have to notify the police when special events — like Static’s lingerie night — are scheduled. The cops would calculate how much extra police coverage will be needed. The club owners would have to pay for that extra coverage.
But the cops wouldn’t be assigned just to that club, Lewis explained. They’d cover the district, and be more easily moved from one spot to another.
City Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts said he’ll discuss a version of the proposal Wednesday night at a meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee. “We hope to clarify that we have the ability” under state law to have the chief require extra-duty hirings, Smuts said. But the plan is to negotiate with clubowners on how a system would work.
Static owner Andrews said he wasn’t holding a lingerie night. He said he had welcomed a group from Southern Connecticut State University to hold an “after-party” at the club following a campus fashion show.
Andrews denied that he had a larger-than-usual crowd. In fact, he claimed, he had stopped admitting people to the club earlier in the evening. “The crowd starting getting a little rambunctious,” he said. “We wanted them to calm down.”
(Note: Some of the comments below refer to an earlier version of this story, which did not include Andrews’ version.)