New Haven Police Department
Officer prepares to mace alleged shoplifter.
(Updated) A tense encounter between a police officer and an alleged shoplifter at the Walmart off Exit 8 ended with two officers injured and the suspect charged with assault on a police officer and larceny in the fifth degree.
Newly released police body camera footage shows the officer approaching the 29-year-old man as the latter is engaged in a verbal dispute with a store employee, spraying him with mace after a brief foot chase through the store, and holding him to the ground and arresting him as the man shouts in disbelief.
The New Haven Police Department released that nearly 10-minute body camera video late Thursday night, hours after a shorter, edited video taken by a bystander racked up over a thousand views on Facebook.
The incident occurred Wednesday around 8:35 p.m.
The body worn camera video comes from Officer Paul Vitale, who was working an extra-duty job Wednesday night at the Walmart, which is at 315 Foxon Blvd.
“The officers’ actions were appropriate under the circumstances and the use of force was appropriate under the circumstances,” Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said in an email press release sent out Thursday night along with the body camera video.
“The arresting officer’s body camera footage clearly shows the officer attempting to detain an individual … who is suspected of trying to walk out the store without paying for a shopping cart of merchandise. The officer is injured as he and responding officers attempt to detain the man.
“During the incident, the man falsely identified himself as a Walmart employee when he is not and he claimed to have tried to make a purchase when he had not. Additionally, officers found the man in possession of a quantity of illegal drugs.
“The officers did an excellent job and used the amount of force necessary to overcome the resistance of the man who refused to be arrested.”
Reyes said the man has been charged with assault on a police officer, interfering with a police officer, larceny fifth degree, three counts of possession of a controlled substance, and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. (Per editorial policy, the Independent does not print the names of people accused of crimes unless they present an imminent danger to the public.)
Vitale suffered an injured knee. Reyes said another officer suffered a hand injury. They were both treated on scene.
The video documents the incident in its entirety: from the man’s attempt to exit the store with merchandise he said he had paid for but apparently could not provide proof of purchase, to a verbal dispute with a store employee and then with Vitale, to Vitale taking out his mace and chasing the man as he flees a physical confrontation, to four or five officers holding the man to the ground as they handcuff him and later bring him outside the store and into a patrol car to be arrested.
The police department also released Thursday afternoon an incident report written by Vitale. See below for a previous version of the article based on that incident report and the bystander’s video. Watch the video above to see the entirety of the incident from Vitale’s point of view.
See below for an earlier version of this article.
Man Arrested In Walmart Scuffle; Cops Hurt
Faceboook
Officer, Walmart employee wrestle with alleged shoplifter.
Two cops were injured while arresting a 29-year-old man in an alleged shoplifting incident at the Walmart off Exit 8, in an encounter captured in part on a viral video.
The incident occurred Wednesday around 8:35 p.m.
The police Thursday afternoon released a report about the incident written by Officer Paul Vitale.
Vitale was working an extra-duty job Wednesday at the Walmart, which is at 315 Foxon Blvd. He wrote that he was standing by the exit with the store’s “asset protection manager,” Fanny Chan, when the 29-year-old man tried to leave with a carriage filled with a “grill, two air conditioners, and a grill cover.”
Chan asked for a receipt. The man failed to produce one. He claimed he had purchased the merchandise through an app. He started “exiting windows on his phone’s screen” when Chan tried to help him verify the purchase, Vitale wrote. Then the man claimed he couldn’t pull the order back on his phone because “the ‘wifi’ was down.” He claimed to have had an employee discount. He claimed he works at a Walmart in North Haven. (North Haven doesn’t have a Walmart, the report notes.)
Vitale called over another Walmart employee, Asset Protection Officer Kenny Kuczynski, because the 29-year-old man’s “voice was rising and he began exhibiting belligerent behavior toward Chan.”
Chan asked the man his name. The man “snapped at her,” wrote Vitale, who proceeded to ask the man to walk away. “I’m trying to purchase my stuff,” the man is quoted as saying.
Based on the man’s “erratic behavior, I told him” to step out “because I believed he was going to escalate a conflict and I wanted him away from other civilians in order to prevent them from potentially being injured. I took out my mace because I believed [he] was going to start fighting,” Vitale wrote.
The man started yelling that he wanted to “buy my shit,” the report states. The man, who was not wearing a face mask, screamed in Vitale’s face, “What? I have to listen to you because you’re a cop? What are you going to do, kill me? … Corona Virus. Get the fuck outta my face,” the report alleges.
Kuczynski moved the shopping cart away from the man. Vitale called for back-up.
“I believed [the man] was displaying precursors to fighting,” wrote Vitale. He alleged that the man walked away as Vitale sought to identify him.
“I grabbed his arm,” at which point the man “pulled away from and tried to run,” Vitale wrote. Vitale then sprayed him with mace.
The man tried to run out of the door. Vitale pursued him and “grabbed him close to the second exit door.” He ordered the man to stop resisting. Five back-up cops arrived.
They put the man in handcuffs. They brought him to a police transport vehicle. They searched him. “A plastic bag with what appeared to be drugs packaged to sale” dropped from him, Vitale wrote.
As he was placed in a transport wagon to be taken to 1 Union Ave., the man allegedly yelled “to his girlfriend, ‘The money is in the bag,’” Vitale wrote.
The man was arrested and treated for mace exposure, according to the report. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance, interfering with a police officer, larceny, and assault on a police officer.
The Walmart merchandise in question was valued at $598.97.
The police report notes that Officer Vitale had had a previous encounter with the arrested man: Last Dec. 13, the man was in a one-car accident involved a Hertz rental car that was allegedly rented using a Walmart discount code; a subsequent check revealed that the man had never worked for Walmart.
Viral Video
Edited snippets of the incident appeared in a subsequent Facebook Live video. As of Thursday it had been shared more than 1,000 times and elicited comments critical of police. (Watch the video at left.)
The video shows the man arguing with Vitale as he is walking out of the store. The man denies he was doing anything wrong. “Stop touching me! … Why are you touching me? What is wrong with you!” he declares. He rushes to the exit , then struggles with Vitale and Kuczynski as a crowd forms to observe from behind a glass partition.
“What is wrong with you? I’m not doing anything!” the man calls out as the men pin him to the ground and other officers rush in.
“Stop resisting!” Vitale commands.
Store employees directed onlookers to step back and “go that way” behind one of the glass exit doors, “so you don’t get hurt.”