A Connecticut man driving a stolen car tried to exchange it for another by carjacking a woman in the drive thru lane at an East Haven Dunkin’ Tuesday night but ran afoul of two store employees who subdued the man and held him down until police arrived.
East Haven Police said that 28-year-old William Rodriguez pulled in front of the victim, a pregnant woman, shortly before 8 p.m. as she waited in line, then got out of the stolen Hyundai Elantra he was driving and slid into her passenger side door, demanding her keys. When she refused, he began punching her.
The victim escaped the vehicle and ran into the store for help as an employee inside, who saw the altercation, alerted two other employees who ran outside and confronted Rodriguez as he was “struggling to operate the victim’s vehicle,” possibly because of intoxication.
The two employees “successfully removed him from the car and restrained him on the ground until police arrived,” police said.
Medics arrived to tend to the car thief, and he promptly bit the hand of one of them. He was taken to a nearby hospital “under guard” before he was transported to the police department for processing.
Rodriguez was charged with breach of peace, assault on emergency medical personnel, robbery, reckless endangerment, assault on a pregnant person, assault, interfering with an officer, and two counts of car theft. He’s being held on a $250,000 bond.
And, it turns out, he had multiple arrest warrants in East Haven already, totally $475,000, along with two more warrants from Connectictut State Police.
