“I’m sorry,” a 31-year-old man told a 71-year-old New havener after breaking into his house and assaulting him. Then the 31-year-old went home, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints.
Officers Robert Hayden and Dana Martin followed that trail and arrested the man. The arrestee apologized again.
That happened early Tuesday, shortly after midnight, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman. Here’s how Hartman described the episode:
The officers “rushed” to a Clinton Avenue home to respond to a reported home invasion. The 71-year-old man who lives there “greeted them” with a swollen lip. He was shaken.
“He told them he’d gone out at about 11:45 to walk his dog, when he noticed two men standing just beyond his front gate. He said the two rushed at him. He yelled at them to leave as he retreated to his front door. The men ran in behind him.”
The victim ordered them out; one of the invaders “punched him in the face. The men threw him about the living room, knocking him into walls. The commotion woke his 61-year-old wife, who ran to get help from her son in-law and daughter. They live in a separate apartment on the second floor.
“The couple’s son in-law confronted the two assailants — physically pushing them out through the front door. He locked it as the two ran off. The living room was in shambles.
“When the son in-law looked out the window he saw the two men returning to the house. He went outside and told them they’d better leave and that he’d phoned police. He said one of the men said, “I’m sorry” several times as the other got on his knees on the snow covered lawn.”
The attackers “fled toward Pine Street, then Atwater Street.
“The officers saw the broken glass littering the floor from a mirror and pictures that the victim had been thrown into. They summoned an ambulance for [the victim] and took down information from the family.
“Officer Martin and Hayden went outside and saw two sets of footprints in the snow,” which they followed to a rear porch on Atwater.
“They announced their presence. The footprints in the snow continued as wet footprints leading up the rear staircase to the multifamily house. As the officers ascended the staircase,” a 31-year-old man (Tuesday was his birthday) “ran toward them from the second floor. He was saying, ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to do it… I blacked out.’ As he was detained, he repeated this several times.”
Police found the 20-year-old alleged accomplice upstairs in the same house and arrested him, too.
The Travels Of A Leopard-Print Cellphone Case
In other police news, a cell phone that disappeared from the Russian Lady turned up in Bridgeport — along with other phones allegedly swiped at New Haven nightclubs this past weekend.
A woman who was at the Russian Lady on Temple Street Saturday night told police that someone had grabbed her cell from her hand. She then couldn’t track down the culprit amid the crush at the club.
She “pinged” the phone later on. The signal came from a Bridgeport address. Bridgeport police went there with the woman; she identified her phone there. It had a distinctive leopard-print case. Police arrested a 24-year-old man in connection with the theft.
Police found 10 phones in all at the Bridgeport address. New Haven detectives have so far identified five of them as having been stolen from the Russian Lady and the nearby Kudeta restaurant the same evening, police said.