Emergency Service Crews Had Plenty To Keep Them Busy This Year

By Andrew Gorosko

During 2006, police monitored a continuing increase in traffic flow on local roads, as they investigated sporadic serious crimes, including two armed robberies that occurred in the fall.

A recent public opinion poll conducted for the police department indicated that many of those responding want heightened enforcement of traffic laws.

The survey results indicate that respondents want police to increase their enforcement of motor vehicle and traffic laws in view of the town’s population growth, which has significantly increased the number of motorists traveling on local roads.

Traffic issues were spotlighted in the controversial Queen Street Area Traffic Improvement Plan, a traffic study that contains about 40 basic recommendations for traffic improvements. Consultants investigated traffic problems to recommend various improvement options for Queen Street, Glover Avenue, Church Hill Road (Route 6), Main Street (Route 25), Mile Hill Road (Route 860), and Commerce Road.

Key recommendations include reconfiguring the Main Street flagpole intersection and also the Queen Street-Glover Avenue intersection near Newtown Middle School. The consultants also recommend extending Commerce Road to Wasserman Way to create an alternate local north-south connector road.

Among the hundreds of motor vehicles accidents that occur each year on local roads, a head-on accident involving a school bus and a pickup truck on Key Rock Road happened in October. The heavy impact resulted in an unidentified male student and female student being transported to Danbury Hospital for medical evaluations, after which they were released. The crash trapped both the pickup truck driver and the truck’s passenger in the 2001 Dodge Dakota, requiring that they both be extricated by firefighters.

The bus was on its way to Head O’ Meadow School when the accident occurred. The pickup truck driver was found to be at fault in the crash.

To improve traffic safety, a set of recently-installed replacement traffic signals is scheduled to be turned on at the intersection of Main Street, Sugar Street, South Main Street and Glover Avenue. New traffic signals also are planned for the intersection of Church Hill Road and Queen Street.

Armed Robberies

Armed robberies are a relatively rare crime locally, but two such incidents occurred within two weeks this year.

In a bold armed robbery on the morning of November 13, three men holding firearms entered the Western Connecticut Federal Credit Union, a private bank at 15 Berkshire Road (Route 34) in Sandy Hook, and threatened violence, demanding cash, after which they made off with an undisclosed amount of money.

The robbers were armed with long-barreled firearms. The nearby Newtown High School entered lockdown mode when school officials learned of the robbery. The FBI and the state police’s Western District Major Crime Squad were called in by town police to help investigate the case, which remains unsolved.

Two weeks earlier on Halloween night, October 31, two males brandishing handguns and threatening violence made off with an unspecified amount of cash in an armed robbery at Buzz’s Mobil at 286 South Main Street in Botsford. The case is under investigation.

On March 31, responding to a report of a man handling a rifle in the vicinity of Newtown High School, waves of town police and state police went to the area, blocking off Berkshire Road and focusing their investigation at the man’s house across the street from the high school.

Police later arrested Kevin Fitzgerald, 46, of 21 Berkshire Road, charging him with second-degree reckless endangerment, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and breach of peace. Fitzgerald had shot a bullet into a tree. There were no injuries in the incident.

All seven public schools entered “lockdown” status as a precautionary measure for the safety of students. The lockdown was in effect briefly, until it became clear that possible danger had passed.

In court in July, Fitzgerald pleaded guilty to one charge, received a small fine and a suspended jail sentence, and was placed on probation.

In July, a nocturnal burglar, who was convicted in May of brutally beating and attempting to sexually assault a Georges Hill Road woman in her home in January 2005, was sentenced to 35 years in state prison on three felony convictions.

A judge sentenced Kenneth Martin Sells, 42, formerly of Stratford, to an effective 35-year prison term for convictions on first-degree burglary, criminal attempt to commit first degree sexual assault, and second degree assault. A six-member jury had found Sells “not guilty” of a fourth charge of first degree sexual assault.

A Middlebury woman, who is facing sexual assault charges for allegedly having had an illegal yearlong sexual relationship with an underage male Newtown High School (NHS) student while the woman worked as a NHS guidance office intern, is considering whether to accept a plea bargain agreement proposed by a state prosecutor that would include prison time.

Jillian Gehrkens, 28, faces two counts of second-degree sexual assault, one count of risk of injury or impairing the morals of a minor, and one count of violation of the conditions of release. She has pleaded “not guilty” to all four charges

Gehrkens is scheduled to appear in court in January to disclose whether she will accept the plea agreement with the state, which would result in her serving jail time.

In June, after a review of two arrest warrant applications submitted by town police detectives to Danbury Superior Court concerning two unidentified town workers’ alleged theft of an unspecified amount of cash at the municipal waste transfer station on Ethan Allen Road, police received word that no arrest warrants would be issued. The theft was discovered in January. The prosecutor’s office opted against pursuing such warrants for unspecified reasons.

Fires

On March 31, an intense blaze destroyed a single-family house at 39 High Bridge Road in Botsford during the height of the evening rush. Billowing plumes of black and gray smoke swirled upward from the burning one-story, concrete-block house, which is positioned several hundred feet north of High Bridge Road, near the Monroe town line.

Several dozen firefighters from Botsford, Sandy Hook, Newtown Hook & Ladder, Hawleyville, Dodgingtown, and Monroe responded to fight the fire, which apparently had been burning for some time before it was discovered and reported by passersby. No one was home at the time of the fire.

Late on the night of March 22, firefighters from three volunteer fire companies responded to an accidental house fire at a home at 4 Overlook Drive that injured five people.

On June 20, a house fire, which apparently was caused by a lightning strike, resulted in an estimated $30,000 of damage to a large new home at 3 Charlie’s Circle in the Tilson Woods residential subdivision in Sandy Hook. No one was home at the time of the fire.

An accidental fire struck an unoccupied house late on May 24, causing extensive damage to the single-family structure on Washington Avenue in Sandy Hook Center. Responding to a passerby’s report of smoke in the area, firefighters located heavy smoke and fire at 20 Washington Avenue, with flames extending out from a roof gable.