Only In Connecticut HAHAHA

State cops: Owner of construction company Tasered after driving drunk on Merritt
TRUMBULL -- An owner of one of the state's largest construction companies was arrested after police said he was driving drunk in his Cadillac and plowed through a construction site on the Merritt Parkway, forcing workers to leap out of the way to avoid being hit.

Police said that when they finally caught up with David Brennan officers had to Taser him to get him under control.

Brennan, 45, of Sconset Drive, Fairfield, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving, running from police, first-degree reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. He was released after posting a $10,000 bond pending arraignment in Superior Court on May 10.

Brennan is an owner of John J. Brennan Construction of Shelton.

According to State Police, last Tuesday night Trooper Edmund Vayan was parked in a construction area in the right lane southbound near exit 48 on the Merritt Parkway when he heard some loud thuds coming from behind his patrol car. He said he looked in his rear view mirror and saw the headlights of a car traveling toward him knocking down the construction barrels and cones blocking the lane.

The car, a 2009 silver Cadillac, veered around Vayan's police car at the last minute and then continued driving along the closed lane at about 80 miles per hour, state police said.

They said construction workers began diving out of the way as the car sped through the construction zone, barrels and cones flying.

The trooper pursued the Cadillac as it sped along the parkway. As it reached the Fairfield rest area other troopers who were waiting for it, dropped stop sticks into the Cadillac's path blowing out two of its tires. But instead of slowing, police said the car accelerated, careening across the roadway.

Eventually police said they were able to box the Cadillac in with their patrol cars and bring it to a stop. But police said Brennan, who smelled of alcohol, refused officers' orders to surrender and they had to Taser him. As Brennan was being taken away police said he kept mumbling that it was his birthday. When police asked Brennan why his car had a Florida registration they said he replied that he claims residency in Florida to get discounts at Disney World.

HAHAHAHA!! I needed a good laugh.

Police: Toddler Pulled from Pequonnock River Has Died

TRUMBULL -- A 21-month-old Trumbull boy who was swept down the rain-swollen Pequonnock River in the morning was pronounced dead early Wednesday night.

Tommy Chisholm had clung to his life through the afternoon at Bridgeport Hospital.

"Our medical team worked to revive this little boy for several hours," said John Cappiello, a hospital spokesman. "Unfortunately, they were not successful. This is a very sad outcome and our hearts go out to this boy's family."

Tommy, the son of Michael and Ruth Chisholm, of Lindberg Drive, was missing for nearly two hours before his unresponsive body was pulled out of Bunnell's Pond in Bridgeport, about a half-mile downstream.

His discovery ended a panicky search by dozens of police, fire, scuba and K-9 units from Trumbull, Shelton, Bridgeport, Monroe and Darien as well as by neighbors of the family.

The search began when Tommy's older sibling -- believed to be his stepsister in her 20s -- called 911 at about 10:42 p.m., according to Trumbull Police Chief Thomas Kiely.

"The child," Kiely said, "was playing near the river. The mother had just turned around for a matter of a minute, and the next thing she knew, the child was missing."

The mother jumped into the river in an attempt to rescue her son, but it's not known if she even had him in sight, police said.

Emergency responders and neighbors searched the river and the woods along its banks. K-9 units used one of the child's stuffed animals to get his scent -- a little white lamb with black button eyes.

The Chisholm's house, a ranch with an attached two-car garage, sits at the end of Lindberg Drive and borders the river. Michael Chisholm grew up in the house, neighbors said, and moved back in six or seven years ago.

The stretch of the Pequonnock beside the house is ordinarily placid and harmless, neighbors said, but it quickly turns angry after the kind of rainstorm that was seen in the early hours of Wednesday morning. About an inch of rain fell between midnight and 7 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.

As the search progressed, the police dogs scoured the neighborhood and police asked owners of all of the cars parked in the neighborhood to open their trunks in hopes of finding the child alive and unharmed.

At one point, police and firefighters pulled two small blankets and a child's shirt from the river as it rushed past the thicket near the Chisholms' house.

Trumbull Center Fire Chief Ed Gratrix estimated that the river was flowing at about nine knots Wednesday morning. "It was difficult to even stand in," he said. A side-scan radar unit was called in from the State Police, Gratrix added, but the equipment wasn't deployed because the child was found.

"We called out all the resources that we could," Kiely added. "As many divers as we could get and as many K-9 units as we could get."

Ultimately, though, Bridgeport Parks Department employees spotted the child in Bunnell's Pond, a widened portion of the river at Beardsley Park. The workers had been told to be on the lookout for anything unusual.

According to witnesses, the child appeared lifeless as he was pulled from the water at about 12:30 p.m. He was transported by ambulance to Bridgeport Hospital.

"The family is distraught, as you can imagine," said Kiely. He added that the incident is being treated as a tragic accident.

"Our staff has been supporting the family throughout the day," added Cappiello. "Our social workers, our pastors and our staff have been in constant touch with the family, and we continue to do so even at this point."

First Selectman Tim Herbst commended the quick response of the Trumbull police and fire departments, and Chiefs Kiely and Gratrix for "putting together such a coordinated response." He also thanked the emergency services from neighboring communities and the state police for helping out.

Herbst said the town will do what it can to support the family: "We're Trumbullites, and we'll be here for them," he said.

Sad News.. Will Update Soon..

Well, I follow 911 Center on twitter, as my mom got me into it, listening to the Greenwich Police Department on their scanner...

Sad news from Trumbull: Missing two year old found dead. Apparently drowned in river. http://bit.ly/dkzky5 RT @WTNH


Two hours before:
Trumbull and Bridgeport are working a report of a two year old in the river between the two towns per PD Hotline

Missing Two Year Old Found Dead

Trumbull, Conn. (WTNH) - A two year old from Trumbull has drowned after falling into the Pequonnock River.

The child was reported missing from

their Lindberg Drive home this morning. Fears that the child had

fallen into the swollen river turned out to be true. Dive teams were quickly assembled and combed the waters, but it was too late.

The child's body was found at Bunnell's Pond at Beardsley Park in Bridgeport. The park has been closed as police continue their investigation.

The child's name has not been released.

Updates will come as soon as I get them..

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It's the same pond that these four people died in back in 2007:

As Van Sank, a Cry for Help That Could Not Be Answered

BRIDGEPORT, Conn., July 5 — Shadae Bartley, 10, watched, terrified, as the van carrying four people, including her 2-year-old niece, barreled down a hillside on Wednesday, plunged into a pond at Beardsley Park here and sank within seconds.

“She yelled ‘Help!’ in the water,” Shadae said of the van’s driver, Michelle McIntosh, 39, who drowned along with her 2-year-old son and Shadae’s niece. The fourth victim, Ms. McIntosh’s 6-year-old nephew, died on Thursday afternoon at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

As relatives of Ms. McIntosh kneeled and prayed at the edge of the choppy waters of Bunnell’s Pond here in this city on Thursday afternoon, Shadae recounted the accident. Tire marks from the tragedy gouged the shoreline.

It was just after 10 a.m. Wednesday when they entered the park for a Fourth of July barbecue. There were two vehicles in tandem, each carrying four people and picnic supplies, when Ms. McIntosh left her van for a moment on a hilltop parking lot to ask Shadae’s mother, Loren Bartley, who was driving the second vehicle, where they should set up in the park.

A moment after Ms. McIntosh stepped out of the van, it began to roll forward, down the steep hillside, Shadae said. Ms. McIntosh jumped back inside.

“She put her whole body in and then she had one foot out of the car, trying to stop it,” Shadae said. “It kept rolling faster.” The van rolled into the pond as water rushed into its open door. A family member called 911.

The van briefly bobbed at the water’s surface, seconds before disappearing.

Shadae described how two relatives raced from the second car into the water and were joined by two onlookers. But no one could get to them; the water was too dark to see.

At a news conference on Thursday, Bryan T. Norwood, chief of the Bridgeport Police Department, said the 911 call came in at 10:41 a.m. Fire Department personnel and scuba divers responded immediately and brought the victims to the surface. The victims, all city residents, were taken to hospitals, where Ms. McIntosh, her son David Jr., 2, and Julia Boyd, 2, were pronounced dead on Wednesday. Jayden Wilson, Ms. McIntosh’s 6-year-old nephew, died the next day at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Chief Norwood said the 1999 Plymouth Voyager traveled 248 feet into the pond and became submerged in 15 feet of water. He said it was unclear whether the transmission had been put in park. A preliminary investigation showed that the engine was on, the emergency brake was not deployed and none of the seat belts were buckled.

One child’s car seat was on the rear passenger seat of the vehicle.

Asked whether one of the children had put the car in gear while Ms. McIntosh stepped outside, Chief Norwood said, “It is unclear at this point.”

In the hours after the accident, relatives clung to hope that Jayden Wilson, who had just completed his first year at a city magnet school, would survive.

“Just to see that his life was taken away so young, it’s hard to understand,” said Sophia Cooper, the boy’s aunt and Ms. McIntosh’s sister.

A financial aid adviser at Monroe College in New Rochelle, N.Y, Ms. McIntosh is survived by her husband, David, and their three daughters, 13, 10, and 5. The couple moved to Bridgeport several years ago from White Plains, N.Y.

Mayor John Fabrizi of Bridgeport said city officials would discuss possible safeguards for the area.

A clutch of silver balloons and two dozen plastic tulips were at the accident scene on Thursday. Some people gathered there to pray, and some left behind homemade cards.

Several described the pond as dangerous and cited a number of drownings there over the years.

Daniel Allen Hearn, a historian and author from Monroe, Conn., said in a phone interview on Thursday that 76 people had drowned at the pond since 1921, including the victims this week.

Angel Morales, 61, of Bridgeport, was among those who came to the pond on Thursday. He said two of his friends had died in the 1970s while swimming in Bunnell’s Pond.

“If there was a fence over here, it would save some people, save some lives,” he said.

Elizabeth Sierra, 34, said, “We just sit here wondering everything they must have gone through at that moment.”

One of the people kneeling at the water’s edge, Leonara Henry, 32, Julia Boyd’s aunt, scooped up water with her hands and let it run down her face.

“The water is not so clean,” she said, “but I just wanted to feel Julia one more time because I know her spirit is in there.”