With guns drawn, a Darien police officer told a Massachusetts man on Sunday to get out of the stolen vehicle he was driving, just before the man was arrested.
gave this account of the incident:
Shortly before 10:55 a.m., Moises Afonso of Dorchester, MA was driving a stolen 2008 Chevrolet Suburban on the Post Road in Darien. A license plate reader in the Darien officer's patrol vehicle, which was also traveling on the Post Road, alerted the officer that a possibly stolen vehicle had been detected.
Afonso, 52, of Dorchester, MA, then drove onto the southbound traffic lanes of Interstate 95. The officer followed the car and stopped it on the Exit 10 off-ramp.
Police confirmed that the vehicle had been stolen from West Springfield, MA a few days before.
When police searched the vehicle, they found checkbooks and a laptop computer that had been stolen weeks before from another vehcile in West Springfield.
Afonso was charged with second-degree Larceny (motor vehicle theft), fifth-degree larceny and operating a vehicle without a license. He was held in lieu of $20,000 bond, which he did not post. He was to appear Monday in state Superior Court in Stamford.
Capt. Frederick W. Komm, a Darien Police spokesman, said in a news release, "Afonso has an extensive criminal history which not surprisingly includes auto theft."
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Correction: The arrested man's last name is Afonso, not Alfonso. The police news release gave the correct spelling, while a photo label used the "L".
Editor's note: at 2:25 p.m., the time of the incident was added to the article.
