Markeshia Ricks Photo
Officer Derek Huelsman was cruising in his squad car on Day Street near George Street when he saw a white Toyota Avalon with four people in it traveling down George.
“As soon as they saw me, the two in the front,” Huelsman said, “looked as if they’d seen a ghost.”
The Toyota made a quick right onto Day Street after the driver saw Huelsman. Huelsman followed.
“Once I got behind it, I called in the plate,” he said. The plate came back for a car that had been previously reported stolen.
Huelsman continued to follow the car, which was now headed toward Chapel Street.
The sergeant in charge told Huelsman to keep following the car. Huelsman also kept calling in the direction the driver was traveling so that cops in the area would be alerted to the situation and ready to provide back up.
Not wanting to spook the driver into a car chase, Huelsman, who was alone in his car, didn’t attempt to pull him over. But he kept following. The driver of the Toyota took a right on Edgewood Avenue and pulled into the Dwight Gardens housing complex.
A dead end.
As Huelsman pulled up behind car, he saw the occupants looking around. The car came to a stop. Suddenly all four doors opened, and everybody bolted. A that moment, this non-car chase became a foot chase.
Huelsman hopped out of his squad car and called in to let fellow officers know that he was running after the car’s occupants.
The four people were running down Elm Street toward Kensington Street. They tore through backyards, hopping a couple of fences in the process. Huelsman, right behind them, called out their location along the way.
He lost sight of them briefly. One of the runners peeled off and got away; the other three kept running together toward Orchard Street.
Huelsman, who has been a city cop for almost three years, tried to keep breathing and stay focused.
“I’m trying to call out and give the best locations I can possibly give as I’m running,” he recalled later. “I was also trying to give as good a description of the individuals as possible.”
His efforts paid off. The foot chase flushed out one of the runners right into the hands of officers on Orchard Street. Though the three others got away, the person the cops apprehended turned out to be the teen operator of the stolen car.
Huelsman, who works the Dwight/Kensington neighborhood, said that he got interested in becoming a police officer because of his uncle, who was a cop in California. “Just growing up hearing his stories got me interested,” the 26-year-old said.
A friend who went through New Haven’s police academy was the one who pushed him to apply. “He said ‘You’ve watched me go through it and you keep talking about it, so you might as well do it,’” Huelsman said. “I applied and everything worked out.”
Read other installments in the Independent’s “Cop of the Week” series:
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• Joseph Aurora
• James Baker
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• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
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• Paul Bicki (2)
• Sheree Biros
• Bitang
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• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia (2)
• Dennis Burgh
• Anthony Campbell
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* Elisa Tuozzoli
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