August 12 – The 911 callers described the dangerous nature of the takeover, some reporting near misses and how an angry mob kicked and jumped on a couple’s car driving through the area where the group attempted stunts.
“Someone is going to die,” said a 911 caller.
But dispatchers gave the callers similar answers.
“We are aware of this incident. We have been told to back off and not intervene,” a dispatcher said, according to one of the recordings. “There’s something bigger going on that we don’t all know they’re working on and we can’t intervene just yet.”
To a caller, a dispatcher said, “We don’t have nearly enough manpower to even handle it safely, so we have to be smart about this, which is why we’re waiting.”
According to an arrest report for the accused ringleader of several takeovers, Connecticut State Police troopers conducted undercover surveillance as they watched more than 100 drivers block streets in at least three cities that night. Troopers said they learned of the planned takeovers through social media posts.
In front of Tolland’s shopping plaza, police watched as cars blocked the path of an ambulance on its way to get gas, officials said. The ambulance, which was damaged, had to turn around and take a different route, officials said.
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Most of the 911 calls came in after 10 p.m. One woman said the group was “watching the whole intersection and doing donuts,” the footage showed.
“We almost had an accident,” she said.
Another woman warned the dispatchers that the takeover had hit the highway.
“We almost crashed,” the woman said in the conversation. “They all decided to merge at the exit and they stopped traffic and that’s pretty bad.”
A man and woman called the police at around 10:20 pm and reported that they had just been attacked and that the group had vandalized their car.
“I was just (smoothly) attacked in my car,” the man yelled, demanding police respond, according to the recording.
“My life was threatened,” another woman pleaded in a separate phone call. “You must come now.”
Another caller told dispatchers that the takeover group would not let him pass even though he tried to get to the hospital, the recordings showed.
“Are you going to do something about it?” the caller asked before telling dispatchers that the group had damaged his vehicle. “The guys were banging on it, denting the car, they’re throwing stuff at my car because I’m trying to get by to go to the hospital. They’ve cordoned off all the way and they’re not letting people in.” Through.”
State police chiefs met with an outraged Tolland community after the takeover.
At the meeting, state police released a timeline stating that at 9:50 p.m., troopers were first notified that a street takeover group was headed for the Big Y in Tolland.
A lieutenant was notified of the event about 20 minutes later and “determined that the patrol would not interfere with the crowd unless there was an immediate risk to public safety or an emergency response was impeded,” according to the timeline.
