Crime & Safety

Fights, Blood, Chaos Amid New Year's Crowd of 100s at Bar

At about 1:40 a.m. on Jan. 1, Numerous fights took place among a large crowd in and outside D'Mekka Ultra Lounge bar at 731 West Ave.

Numerous fights broke out amid hundreds of people in and outside D'Mekka bar at 731 West Ave. about an hour and 52 minutes into the new year.

Norwalk police gave this account (involving accusations not proven in court) of the incident and arrests:

Police on patrol first saw the large crowd and several people fighting at about that time. According to one report to police, there were as many as 500 people inside the bar. Police said that when they arrived there were 100 to 200 people outside the bar on West Avenue and Wall Street.

Police said they saw one man swinging a folded chair at other patrons near the bar entrance and arrested him. Some were struck by the chair. One other man was arrested, as well.

Meanwhile, there were so many other fights going on amid the large crowd that police had no hope of breaking them up. Numerous people could be seen bleeding from head wounds.

At one point early on, a police supervisor advised several officers at the scene, not to enter the bar because the raucous crowd was unlikely to be controlled by the officers on hand.

Police arrested Nesken Basquiat, 26, of Miramar, FL (and previously a resident of Stamford), who was wielding the folding chair. Basquiat was charged with second-degree breach of peace and interfering with an officer.

Also arrested (with the same charges) was Eliezer Gabriel, 26, of High Ridge Road in Stamford. Gabriel was initially held on $5,000 bond, Basquiat on $1,500 bond.

After Basquiat was taken into custody and was in a police patrol car, a crowd, yelling and screaming, gathered around the car.

One man, saying he was Basquiat's brother, tried to open the back door of the patrol car. Police sprayed the man with pepper spray, but before police could arrest him, the man's friends hustled him away, fleeing toward nearby Mott Street.

No victims or complainants stayed on the scene to complain to police about being attacked.

D'Mekka "has been a site of disturbances, fights and other nuisances" in the past, said Norwalk Police Lt. Timothy Murphy.



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