Patricia Kane photo
Burgundy Buick’s front grille after a car crash at Clifton Street and Quinnipiac Avenue Monday night.
City police officer Jocelyn Lavandier was working an extra duty shift outside the C‑Town Market in Fair Haven when she saw the passenger of a nearby burgundy Buick roll a marijuana cigarette. She also smelled “the odor of unburnt marijuana emanating from the vehicle.”
That was the start of a six-officer, four-minute pursuit of the suspected drug dealer’s vehicle across the river and into Fair Haven Heights — ultimately resulting in a non-fatal car crash on Quinnipiac Avenue, and no arrests.
New Haven Police Department Officer Michael Pierne described what happened Monday between 6:56 and 7 p.m. in an official departmental incident report.
Click here to read Pierne’s full report.
According to Pierne, Lavandier reached out to him at 6:56 p.m. after she saw and smelled the marijuana-toting suspect.
She had noticed a burgundy Buick drive past her outside the C‑Town Market at 325 Ferry St., Pierne reports. In that Buick, she saw a male passenger rolling a marijuana cigarette and she smelled “unburnt marijuana.” She checked the license plate of the vehicle against the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, but that turned up no results.
Lavandier told Pierne that the burgundy Buick’s operator, who was wearing a red sweatshirt, had parked in the C‑Town parking lot and had gone into the grocery store. But by the time that Pierne, and Officers Randy Billups, Nicholas Pazsak, Caitlin Zerella, Martin Feliciano, and D. White arrived at the scene, the suspect had already gotten back into his car and headed east on Grand Avenue.
So the officers pursued.
“These officers followed the vehicle where it turned south onto E Pearl Street,” Pierne wrote. “I activated my overhead lights and sirens in attempt to conduct a motor vehicle stop in front of 124 E Pearl Street. Said vehicle continued traveling south on E. Pearl Street then turned east on Exchange Street.”
Traffic on Exchange Street led to the officers temporarily losing sight of the vehicle. But when they got to the intersection of Exchange and Front Street, they saw the vehicle again, heading up Front and turning east to cross the Grand Avenue bridge. The vehicle then turned north onto Lenox Street, “where these officers were stopped due to traffic.”
As traffic began to clear, Officer Zerella observed “from a distance” the vehicle turn west onto Clifton Street.
“These officers then went west on Clifton until its intersection with Quinnipiac Ave.”
Zerella was unable to tell which was the vehicle turned on Qunnipiac, Pierne wrote. So the officers started traveling north on Quinnipiac, where they saw the vehicle again — this time turning east onto Runo Terrace.
By the time the officers got to Runo Terrace, which is a dead end, they found the burgundy Buick parked at the turn of the street. Both occupants had left the vehicle. And the officers still smelled “the odor of burnt marijuana emanating from the vehicle.”
They canvassed the area, but were unable to find the driver and the passenger.
Inside the car, the officers did find a Beats by Dre headphone case containing a clear plastic bag with 0.8 ounces of marijuana and a scale. The vehicle was later towed to Lombard Towing.
“While on scene,” Pierne wrote towards the end of his report, “these officers were notified that the burgundy Buick had struck a vehicle at the intersection of Clifton Street and Quinnipiac Ave.” Pierne does not note that officers observed what Officer Randy Billups subsequently wrote in his accident report — that the struck car spun out of control, onto the curb, and into a fence.
Billups wrote that the burgundy Buick “did not grant the right of way” to a vehicle travelling up Quinnipiac Avenue at the intersection with Clifton Street and subsequently hit that car’s passenger side tire before fleeing northbound. The offending vehicle later found on Runo Terrace had damage to its front bumper.
The driver of the car that was hit told Billups that the collision caused his vehicle to “spin out, go onto the curb, and hit the fence of 733 Quinnipiac Avenue.” That second vehicle had scuffs to the rear passenger tire and paint transfer to the rear bumper, Billups wrote. The vehicle’s operator “complained of pain to his neck and back but stated he would seek his own medical attention.”
Billups then located the spouse of the owner of the fence and provided them with a case number.