Over 72 hours this weekend, Friday at 7 a.m. to Monday at 7 a.m., the Farmington Police Department made exactly one arrest. The press log recording it runs one page. The page is mostly margin.
The arrest: on Saturday afternoon, July 25, at 1:19 p.m., Farmington police arrested Seth Thomas Roger Eastman, 28, at 184 Town Farm Road, the same address the log lists as his residence. He faces two charges, disorderly conduct under section 53a-182 and third-degree assault under section 53a-61 of the Connecticut General Statutes. The arresting officer was John M. Finn.
The bond arithmetic rewards attention. On the disorderly conduct count, bond was set at $2,500, non-surety. Per the log's remarks line, Eastman posted it, which on a non-surety bond means, by the Connecticut Judicial Branch's own glossary, that the defendant's signature alone guarantees the amount and nothing is paid up front. Twenty-five hundred dollars, secured by handwriting. On the assault count, the bond field reads "$.00." The log does not explain why. The log is not in the explanation business.
It is, however, punctual in its own way. The log lists Eastman's court date as Monday, July 27. The log itself, per its header, was run on Monday, July 27, at 7:09 a.m. The paperwork announcing the court date and the court date arrived on the same morning. The Mercury, whose motto is "Always last to breaking news," recognizes a kindred document when it reads one.
The rest is form. The document arrives under the department's standing title, "Press Arrest Log - Youths Redacted," which means exactly what it says: juvenile arrests are removed from the public copy. It also has the rhythm of a band name. Officer Finn, for his part, is a recurring credit in this series; his name last appeared four days earlier, on the July 21 log, for a DUI arrest at Route 6 and Interstate 84.
For scale: the Mercury's last log, covering July 22 to 23, carried a hit-and-run warrant and two larceny arrests. The weekend log before this one, July 17 to 20, carried an assault arrest and three cleared warrants. This weekend, across three nights, a town of roughly 26,000 produced a single arrest and a Total Arrests line that reads, in its entirety, "1." Quiet is a data point too. This weekend it was very nearly the only one.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Museum air is what it sounds like: the climate standard museums hold for things that are not allowed to change. The Mercury cannot promise you an uneventful weekend. Farmington Storage can promise one to your belongings. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett read a one-page arrest log twice and is prepared to call it a thorough weekend. Two coffees were involved. Neither was strictly necessary. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering, at a pace nobody else would dare. Police logs, zoning fights, school budgets, the meetings that run past 10 p.m.: all of it, eventually, correctly. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news," and we are pleased to report there was no breaking news to be last to. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell a neighbor. Statistically, they were not arrested this weekend either. #WeAreFarmington 📰