Police last week arrested a 36-year-old New Canaan man by warrant after surveillance footage at his apartment complex showed the man getting physical and acting aggressively toward his own aunt, who also lives there.
The altercation unfolded at a Lakeview Avenue complex on the morning of Dec. 28, the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s, according to an arrest warrant application obtained by NewCanaanite.com.
At about 10:37 a.m., police responded to a report of an assault “that had just occurred,” according to the affidavit of Officer Michael Schnell that forms the basis of the application, signed by a state Superior Court judge.
There, officers met with the victim, who said that her nephew had “shoved her and spit on her during an altercation in the parking lot of the apartment complex,” according to the application,
The man told police a different story, saying that he and his aunt had been arguing recently because she disregarded “his request not to bring her boyfriend to visit [his] father in the hospital,” Schnell said in the affidavit. In the parking lot that morning, the man told police, his aunt “confronted him, yelled at him, bumped him with her chest and grabbed his face with her hand,” the application said.
Surveillance footage that police reviewed the following day backed up the victim’s story. In it, the man can be seen walking toward his aunt :in an aggressive manner and spread his arms out to the side” before removing his winter hat and bumping her with his chest, causing the victim to take two steps backward, the application said. He pushed her with both hands and bumped her again while the victim tried repeatedly to push him away, the footage showed, according to the application.
A friend of the nephew who also was interviewed by police intervened in the dispute and tried to pull him out of the building, but the nephew struggled against him and “kicked [the victim] in the waist with his left foot,” the arrest warrant application said. He then grabbed her by both shoulders and continued arguing, blocking the woman’s path when she tried to step away and enter an elevator, it said.
Police concluded that the man had been the primary aggressor, initiating and continuing physical contact, and charged him with third-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace. He turned himself in on the arrest warrant at about 10:10 p.m. on Jan. 14. The man promised to appear the following day. According to Connecticut Judicial Branch records, he has not yet pleaded and is now scheduled for arraignment March 10.
The Domestic Violence Crisis Center in Stamford provides services, support and education for the prevention and elimination of domestic violence. Its 24-hour hotline is 888-774-2900. To reach DVCC offices during regular business hours, the number is 203-588-9100. Services are free and confidential, multilingual and multicultural. Here’s a recent Q&A with the organization’s executive director.