Seven Waterbury officers were injured Sunday when a wanted woman drove into their police cars during a wild chase before crashing in Monroe, police said.
The officers were treated at the hospital and discharged but are not able to work, Chief Fernando Spagnolo said Monday. Their injuries include bruises, and neck and back sprains, he said.
Hannah Casperson, 25, was placed under arrest and taken to St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport to be treated for more serious injuries, although they are not life-threatening. Spagnolo said Casperson broke her femur and dislocated her hip when she flipped the Hummer she had been driving.
Spagnolo said it will cost $135,000 to fix or replace the eight damaged patrol vehicles.
“Two of those Tahoes were brand new cars, they just went into service a few weeks back,” he said during an afternoon news conference.
The chaotic series of crashes easily could have ended in death, Spagnolo said. The first officer who encountered Casperson drew his weapon and feared for his life and but “had the fortitude” not to use deadly force, he said.
“This is a terrible situation that we had to deal with here at the Police Department,” the chief said.
According to police, shortly before 8:45 am. Sunday officers received information that Casperson was in a white Hummer at Rutledge and East Main streets in Waterbury. She was a suspect in smash-and-grab thefts in Waterbury and the person police believe was the alleged getaway driver in a string of car break-ins early Friday in Wolcott.
When an officer went to talk to her, police said Casperson sped forward, striking the officer’s police car, which was blocking her escape route. Ignoring the officer pointing his gun at her and yelling for her to stop, she kept backing up and pulling forward into his vehicle until she squeezed her way through, videos show.
Police said she hit another police cruiser at East Main and Brass Mill Drive before getting onto I-84 westbound. She ended up two towns away in Monroe, where she struck more pursuing police cars before she rolled her Hummer near Wheeler Road and Monroe Turnpike, or Route 111, said police, who placed her under arrest before she was taken to the hospital.
Casperson will be processed on “multiple outstanding warrants,” police said, in addition to new charges, once she is discharged. The new charges will include reckless endangerment, interfering with an officer, failure to obey an officer’s signal, evading responsibility and engaging in pursuit, Spagnolo said.
Wolcott police said the Hummer — and Casperson — allegedly were linked to 41 vehicle break-ins in their town last week.
They happened between 4 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Friday in the area of an elderly housing complex on Wolfs Hill Road and in the Munson and Brooks Hill roads area, police said. Officers learned that the thieves got into parked cars through unlocked doors and when they found cars that were locked, they broke the windows. They suspected a man broke into the cars while a female getaway driver, later allegedly identified as Casperson, waited in a white Hummer.
Police said they found the Hummer in the parking lot of Pat’s IGA in Wolcott with Casperson behind the wheel. She took off, Wolcott Chief Edward Stephens said, but police discovered the male suspect inside the store, near the exit, with a cart full of meat. They arrested him, and he confessed to the car thefts, he said.
The man, Thomas Crawford, 31, of New Haven Road, Naugatuck, is charged with 41 counts each of third-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit third-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny and second-degree criminal mischief. Police set his bail at $75,000.
Stephens, who joined Spagnolo at the news conference, surmised the pair didn’t get many valuables from the parked cars in his town, where police had been telling residents to remove all of their valuables from their cars at night.
“They weren’t too successful with what they got from the cars,” Stephens said.
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