Paul Bass Photo
Another package disappeared from outside an East Rocker’s door. Thanks to a sharp-eyed citizen, Officer Matt Myers had information to work with.
Myers knew the thief carried a black and brown umbrella. He knew the thief, a Hispanic male, carried a white plastic bag and had fled the scene pushing a bicycle.
He knew that because a neighbor had called in the information.
East Rock has been plagued by thefts of packages from front porches. Cops have appealed to neighbors to call in details of thefts. This Tuesday, at 12:43 p.m., a man did just that when he watched the thief make off with a package left on a porch on Willow Street.
Myers, a 48-year-old New Haven cop for 17 years who loves to fish in his spare time, usually patrols Westville/West Hills. On Tuesday he was cruising East Rock on an overtime assignment.
He heard the report. Then he saw a man with a bike on Whitney Avenue.
Normally, Myers said, he might not have stopped the man right away. He would have circled the area to take note of people with bikes, then return to the man if he proved the most promising suspect. After all, lots of men travel the neighborhood by bike.
But this man was pushing the bike. He was Hispanic. He had a white bag on him. And an umbrella — black and brown.
So Myers pulled over.
“Sir,” he asked the 34-year-old New Haven man, “were you on any of the porches in the area?”
“No,” the man replied.
Myers asked the man where he was going. To meet a “friend” to “do some work,” the man responded. Where? Elsewhere in town.
“Sir,” Myers recalled continuing, “do you mind if I see what you have in the bag?”
“No problem,” the man consented, according to Myers.
Myers discovered a plastic pouch containing 10 cigars of different varieties. The pouch had a label with an e‑mail address. That address caught Myers’ eye.
Without mentioning the label, he asked the man where he obtained the cigars. “From a smoke shop,” on Monday, the man replied.
“He was very inconsistent with his replies,” Myers concluded.
Meanwhile, Sgt. Robert Lawlor headed to Willow Street. He and the neighbor who’d phoned in the complaint canvassed the neighborhood. On Whitney Avenue they found a discarded empty cigar box. It had been shipped by UPS from Bar Harbor, Florida, by a company called MC Distributors.
Myers went online and connected the recovered cigars — and the “MC” — to Mike’s Cigars.
A Romeo’s Spot
Myers (pictured) and the top East Rock cop, Lt. Herb Sharp, credited the citizen who called in for making the arrest possible.
For months, Sharp has assigned a rookie cop to a daily eight-hour shift to focus exclusively on the rash of thefts from front porches. “This is one of my top priorities,” he said. He has also impressed on neighbors the importance of helping the cops by phoning in information. Until Tuesday, the effort had yet to produce an arrest.
The man who phoned in Tuesday’s theft was on the case. A professional in his early 30s, he lives in East Rock. (He asked not to be named in this story.) He described how he has had his eye on the alleged thief since one day last October.
He was having lunch outdoors at Cafe Romeo on Orange Street, “people watching,” when he noticed the man walking by with his bicycle. The man “looked back at me suspiciously” as he “scanned the street.” After finishing his sandwich, the young professional followed behind the suspicious man. He saw the man “looking at people’s porches.”
After that he periodically saw the man back in the neighborhood on a similar mission. Meanwhile, one of the young professional’s packages disappeared from his porch. His neighbors reported similar thefts. He consulted with the neighborhood FedEx deliverer, who recognized the description and notified his employer about the situation. He consulted with his mailman, who suggested having boxes delivered to his workplace.
One day the young professional saw the man walk up a porch empty-handed, then walk away with a box. He called the police non-emergency number. Officers responded, but the man had vanished. On other occasions he saw the man riding away with plastic bags and what looked like merchandise. Sometimes he got through to the non-emergency numbers, sometimes not. But he hadn’t again caught the man in the act, he said.
Until Tuesday.
The young professional was driving in the neighborhood and saw the man on Willow Street, he said. “He made it real easy. He rode his bicycle up to the porch. He walked up to the house. He picked up the box and walked away.” The young professional followed the man’s walk down Whitney and called the police. Myers arrived promptly and made the collar.
36-Inch Catfish
Contributed Photo
Myers arrested the man with the bike and umbrella on a sixth-degree larceny charge. Detectives suspect the arrestee may be responsible for other East Rock package thefts, according to Sgt. Manmeet Colon, who heads the department’s robbery and burglary unit.
According to the state judicial database, the arrestee has previously pleaded guilty to sixth-degree larceny four separate times. That charge covers thefts of property worth $250 or less. Tuesday’s confiscated items, Myers said, “were just average cigars.”
Not that he knows cigars. His pastimes trend more toward old-model cars (he drives a 1954 Bentley), hunting, and fishing. Myers, who’s 48, moved to New Haven in his early 20s; like many African-American New Haveners, including New Haven cops, he came from South Carolina. In fact, three other cops — Sgt. Joe Dease, Detective Hilden Wright, and Officer Carl Myers (Matt’s brother) — attended the same high school in Georgetown, S.C. before moving to the Elm City. After seven years in management positions at Stop & Shop and Rite-Aid, Matt Myers applied to become a New Haven cop, and was accepted.
He finds fishing in particular a relaxing way to spend time off-duty. At local haunts like Maltby Lakes and Lake Saltonstall he catches small fish, 12-inch catfish, and sunfish. He caught his biggest fish, a 36-inch catfish (pictured above), on a trip to California.
Likewise, in his 17 years on the force, he has worked patrol, concentrating on small fish. Of all the arrests he has made over the years, Myers said, Tuesday’s was his biggest fish.
Myers’ boss, Sgt. Renee Dominguez, said he excels in handling the “everyday calls” that most often put officers in contact with the public.
“He’s one of the guys I get the most positive feedback from the community about,” she said. She just received an email, for instance, from a woman who’d been involved in a car accident. The woman reported that Myers “was very professional. He explained everything. He kept her informed.”
Meanwhile, fishing season begins this weekend. Myers plans to return to the lakes. Those 12-inch catfish, he said, will suit him just fine.
Read other installments in the Independent’s “Cop of the Week” series:
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• Joseph Aurora
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• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
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• Paul Bicki (2)
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* Elisa Tuozzoli
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