Two separate stolen-car incidents involving minors turned harrowing — but ended safely.
The first occurred in New Haven’s West River neighborhood Friday morning around 9:30.
Police were looking for several stolen vehicles, at a time when auto theft is up in the city (570 vehicles stolen as of Nov. 8, a 1.7 percent increase from 2019), according to a write-up from mayoral spokesperson Gage Frank.
Officer Christopher Lawrence found one of the vehicles, a 2015 Black Ford Fusion that had been stolen from Hamden on Nov. 18, on Greenwood Street.
The car was running, with three people — aged 13, 14, and 15 — inside. The doors were locked.
Back-up officers arrived. Lawrence used a “window punch” attached to his pocket knife to break the driver-side window, injuring his hand. Another officer, Michael Lozada, noticed a passenger in the back seat pull a gun out of his waistband, according to Gage’s release.
After officers pulled their guns as well, the passenger dropped the weapon.
The car’s three occupants were detained and arrested without further incident; another passenger had a firearm “loaded with a round in the chamber.”
Two of the car’s occupants had outstanding warrants, related to drug and stolen-car offenses. They were charged with weapons and larceny-related offenses.
The second incident occurred on Hamden Saturday morning.
A woman at a Dixwell Avenue service station lot around 10 a.m. “had an issue with her credit card and was distracted” when a man got into her car and drove off — with a 7‑month-old baby “strapped in the car seat,” according to a release from Hamden police spokesperson Capt. Ronald Smith.
The thief drove down Dixwell Avenue to another Dixwell Avenue commercial parking lot. There he was observed leaving the car and running toward a different stolen vehicle, a Honda CRV, and hopping inside, at which point the driver sped off.
The baby “appeared unharmed,” Smith reported. He asked anyone with information to contact the police at (203) 230‑4000.