Markeshia Ricks photo
Caitlin Zerella was cruising the neighborhood near the intersection of Derby Avenue and Mead Street when she saw a man riding his bike on the sidewalk.
Zerella debated with herself about whether to stop him.
She followed him slowly. The man kept looking over his shoulder. He also kept rubbing his pocket.
Zerella decided to stop him near Judson Avenue. As soon as she parked and opened her car door, he dropped the bike.
He took off.
And so did she.
He ran between a fence and a house cutting behind the house to avoid Zerella. Instead of following him, she attempted to cut him off as he was coming from behind the house.
“He doubled back to hop the fence,” she said. Turns out he had dumped the gun that he apparently was carrying when Zerella stopped him.
During the foot chase, she had been calling out the man’s location and her fellow officers from District 4, who affectionately call her the “D4 Princess,” had set up a perimeter. Zerella is the only woman officer working in D4; she said she likes knowing fellow officers have her back.
“They treat me like a sister,” she said of her fellow officers. “It was definitely a team effort.”
Officer Chris Cameron was “leaping from roof to roof like Spiderman,” to keep the runner in sight, Zerella recalled, while Officer Chris Alvarado was positioning himself to help grab the runner.
In an attempt to disguise himself, the man had taken off his shirt and put it over his head. The tactic didn’t work. When he ran out onto Parmalee Avenue, Officer Joseph Galvan was waiting for him. “He practically ran right in to Galvan’s arms,” Zerella recalled.
While her fellow officers were wrapping up with the man, Zerella had a new problem on her hands — an irate resident of the home that she had chased the suspect behind.
The Irate Dirtbiker
She and officers Paulius Laukaitus and John Caron were guarding the gun that the running man had ditched in one of the trash cans behind the house. A man came out of the house yelling about a dirt bike and ordering the officers of his property.
People were outside lending their voices to the tension of the moment. Zerella’s focus remained on the yelling man.
“I told him to step back, and that we weren’t there about his bike,” she said. “But he kept charging at us.”
The man was significantly taller than Zerella and outweighed her. He failed to calm down after Zerella told him he was interfering with and investigation. So Zerella grabbed his wrist to handcuff him. He snatched his arm from her grip; then Laukaitus and Caron tackled him. He too, ended up arrested that day.
Zerella called the gun arrest, and the subsequent arrest of the man from the house, one of the most chaotic experiences of her two and a half years so far on the beat. (Click here to read about her personal story.) She loves the work, she said, especially the community policing part of it, where she gets to be on the street interacting with people and is encouraged to follow up with them after difficult encounters.
Which is how this one story would end this Tuesday, two weeks later.
The Bathroom Bandit
Zerella was busy Tuesday arresting another man who thought it a wise idea to run from her.
When she approached him about his bike-riding habits, he tried to ride away. On foot, Zerella chased down the man, who had been riding a bike the wrong way on Chapel Street.
With Zerella hot on his heels on foot, and Officer Robert Hayden following on a bike, the man ducked into a Day Street housing complex, and quickly managed to break into a woman’s home.
That was a mistake.
Zerella and Hayden found his bike in front of an apartment. The woman who lives in the apartment that he broke into was home, but had been upstairs. She didn’t think anyone else was in her apartment. When the officers asked if they could take a look inside, and she agreed. There they found him, hiding behind a bathroom door.
His illegal entry into the woman’s home earned him a one-way ticket to police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., and earned Zerella high fives from veteran officers Hayden and Elsa Berrios.
The 28-year-old Zerella, who has been working in the Dwight/Kensington neighborhood for about two and a half years, said such arrests are becoming her standard day at the office. “This type of thing seems to happen all of the time,” she said.
Replay
But what doesn’t happen all the time is getting the opportunity to shake hands with someone you recently arrested. That’s exactly what Zerella got to do when she returned to Judson Avenue following Tuesday’s arrest.
She saw the man who had confronted her on the day she chased the man who allegedly dumped the gun. He came outside to sit on the front porch with two other men.
“Are you feeling calmer today?” she asked the man, after introducing herself to him and the other two men.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m cool.”
The two talked about what happened. The man said people nearby in the neighborhood told him that the police were behind his house, possibly looking for his dirt bike. “I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
“I told you we weren’t there about your bike,” she said.
“How was I supposed to know?” he asked.
She told him if he had stayed calm, he would have heard her saying that the officers were there guarding evidence.
“No hard feelings about the other day?” she asked the man.
“Nah,” he said. “We’re cool.”
“We’d be cooler,” he added, “if you come to court and tell them to drop the charges.”
Read other installments in the Independent’s “Cop of the Week” series:
• Shafiq Abdussabur
• Craig Alston & Billy White Jr.
• Joseph Aurora
• James Baker
• Lloyd Barrett
• Elsa Berrios
• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
• Paul Bicki
• Paul Bicki (2)
• Sheree Biros
• Bitang
• Scott Branfuhr
• Bridget Brosnahan
• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia
• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia (2)
• Dennis Burgh
• Anthony Campbell
• Darryl Cargill & Matt Wynne
• Elizabeth Chomka & Becky Fowler
• Rob Clark & Joe Roberts
• Sydney Collier
• Carlos Conceicao
• Carlos Conceicao (2)
• Carlos Conceicao and Josh Kyle
• David Coppola
• Mike Criscuolo
• Steve Cunningham and Timothy Janus
• Roy Davis
• Joe Dease
• Milton DeJesus
• Milton DeJesus (2)
• Brian Donnelly
• Anthony Duff
• Robert DuPont
• Jeremie Elliott and Scott Shumway
• Jeremie Elliott (2)
• Jose Escobar Sr.
• Bertram Ettienne
• Bertram Ettienne (2)
• Martin Feliciano & Lou DeCrescenzo
• Paul Finch
• Jeffrey Fletcher
• Renee Forte
• Marco Francia
• Michael Fumiatti
• William Gargone
• William Gargone & Mike Torre
• Derek Gartner
• Derek Gartner & Ryan Macuirzynski
• Tom Glynn & Matt Williams
• Jon Haddad & Daniela Rodriguez
• Michael Haines & Brendan Borer
• Michael Haines & Brendan Borer (2)
• Dan Hartnett
• Ray Hassett
• Robert Hayden
• Robin Higgins
• Ronnell Higgins
• William Hurley & Eddie Morrone
•Derek Huelsman
• 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
• Reggie McGlotten
• Steve McMorris
• Juan Monzon
• Matt Myers
• Carlos and Tiffany Ortiz
• Chris Perrone
• Ron Perry
• Joe Pettola
• Diego Quintero and Elvin Rivera
• Ryan Przybylski
• Stephanie Redding
• Tony Reyes
• David Rivera
• Luis & David Rivera
• Luis Rivera (2)
• Salvador Rodriguez
• Salvador Rodriguez (2)
• Brett Runlett
• David Runlett
• Betsy Segui & Manmeet Colon
• Allen Smith
• Marcus Tavares
• Martin Tchakirides
• David Totino
• Stephan Torquati
• Gene Trotman Jr.
* Elisa Tuozzoli
• Kelly Turner
• Lars Vallin (& Xander)
• Dave Vega & Rafael Ramirez
• Earl Reed
• Daophet Sangxayarath & Jessee Buccaro
• Arpad Tolnay
• John Velleca
• Manuella Vensel
• Holly Wasilewski
• Holly Wasilewski (2)
• Alan Wenk
• Stephanija VanWilgen
• Elizabeth White & Allyn Wright
• Matt Williams
• Michael Wuchek
• Michael Wuchek (2)
• David Zannelli
• Cailtin Zerella
• Caitlin Zerella, Derek Huelsman, David Diaz, Derek Werner, Nicholas Katz, and Paul Mandel
• David Zaweski