The Farmington Police Department reported one arrest in its most recent press log, covering the 24-hour window from 7 a.m. Thursday to 7 a.m. Friday. The arrest was a routine shoplifting case — a single charge, a posted bond, a court date two weeks out. The notable part is who made it, where, and that we have written almost the same paragraph before.
According to the official log, Joshua Anthony Soler, 34, of New Britain, was arrested Thursday at 9:13 p.m. at 1600 Southeast Road on a single count of Larceny in the 6th Degree (§53a-125b). His bond was set at $5,000 nonsurety. He posted bond and was released. His court date is May 14. The arresting officer was Jose R. Santiago. Incident number 2600007197. The remarks field reads, in full: "Arrested in connection with Shoplifting. Posted bond."
That makes three.
Three Officer Santiago appearances in the series, that is. The first was April 16 at 319 New Britain Avenue, where Santiago served a single defendant, Honesty Love Tirado of New Britain, on five separate incident numbers in a single warrant-service event. It remains the most concentrated warrant service in the series so far. The second was April 27 at 1600 Southeast Road — Cheikhou Seck of Enfield, 9:50 a.m., five charges, three of them first-in-series statutes, held on bond. The third is the one we are reporting today.
Two of three Santiago arrests have now happened at the same address. Both of those are connected to retail theft. That is, by any reasonable definition, the start of a pattern.
500 South Road — the Westfarms Mall corridor that has produced seven shoplifting arrests in this series, almost all of them by Officer Daniel R. Aparo — is the obvious comparison. We are not yet calling 1600 Southeast Road another 500 South Road. Two arrests is not a streak. It is a coincidence with momentum.
Update, May 6: A third arrest at 1600 Southeast Road on May 4 made it a streak — and the arresting officer was not Officer Santiago. See Farmington Police Log, May 4: One Arrest at Southeast Road, and a Hotspot Becomes Official. But two arrests on the same charge at the same address by the same officer in three days is also, definitionally, not nothing.
The series total now stands at 52 unique arrestees across 19 logs. Seven of them are Farmington residents. The other 45 — Mr. Soler included — are not.
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— Jack Beckett has covered the Farmington Police log beat long enough to know that the same officer making the same charge at the same address for the second time in three days is not, technically, a pattern, but it is, technically, also not a coincidence. He is on his second coffee. He regrets nothing. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering — the zoning meeting that ran until 10 p.m., the police log that is technically public record but you'd never find unless someone typed it up, the school board vote that determines what your kids learn next year. We publish slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news" and we stand behind it: by the time you read this, the dust has settled, the facts are checked, and Jack Beckett has had at least two cups of coffee. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰