FARMINGTON — The Farmington Police Department logged four arrests between Monday morning and Tuesday morning, a 24-hour stretch that will be remembered chiefly for the fact that everyone involved posted bond and went home, making it possibly the least suspenseful crime wave in the town's recorded history.
Every person arrested is presumed innocent, which in this case is easy, because by the time the log printed at 7:39 Wednesday morning, all of them were already back out in the world, bond posted, court dates penciled in, the machinery of justice having ground forward roughly one-quarter of an inch.
If there is a protagonist in Tuesday's log, it is Officer Kyler A. Fausel, who accounted for three of the department's four arrests without, as far as the record shows, having to chase anyone. His night was less a crime-fighting montage than a delivery route: outstanding warrants that needed serving, served.
Here is the night, in the order the town would rather forget it.
Railroad Avenue, late afternoon. Fausel served James Demetrios Sakellarios, 68, of Railroad Avenue, with two outstanding re-arrest warrants, each charging violation of probation and each tied to a separate older case. He served the first at 4:45 p.m. and the second at 5:33, which is how one man, standing in one doorway, becomes two of the four arrests in Tuesday's log. No new allegation was involved. This was the paperwork catching up with him, not a spree. Bond on each warrant was set at $15,000 surety, both were posted, and his court date is August 6.
8:49 p.m. — New Britain Avenue. Fausel arrested Freddie Tharpe, 68, of Hartford, on a larceny warrant. Sixth-degree larceny is the smallest larceny Connecticut offers, the participation trophy of theft charges. Bond was set at $1,500. Tharpe posted it and is due in court August 11.
9:50 p.m. — New Britain Avenue. The evening's only arrest not made by Officer Fausel went to Officer Jose R. Santiago, who charged Marissa Sophia Ramirez-Rivera, 25, of Farmington, with second-degree criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. Bond was set at $2,500. She posted it. Her court date is Wednesday, which is to say, today, which is to say, faster than this newspaper.
Total arrests: four. Actual defendants: three. Still in custody by breakfast: zero.
The department's own math tells the story. Of the four arrests headlining Tuesday's log, two were the same man's back-warrants cleared in a single visit and a third was an old larceny warrant, which means the night's genuinely fresh police work amounted to roughly one incident and a lot of filing. This is not a complaint. A town whose worst night in a 24-hour stretch is "we finally served some warrants and everybody made bond" is a town doing fine.
The evening offered no high-speed pursuits, no standoffs, and no mysteries, unless you count the enduring one of why New Britain Avenue and Railroad Avenue continue to do so much of the town's heavy lifting while the rest of Farmington's streets sit there contributing nothing to the arrest log at all.
The Farmington Police Department did not respond to a request for comment, on the reasonable grounds that no one had asked them one, and that Officer Fausel, having done a full night's work by 9 p.m., had presumably earned the quiet.
The Farmington Mercury publishes the Farmington Police Department's daily arrest log as a matter of public record. All individuals named are presumed innocent unless and until convicted. Charges reflect allegations by police, not findings of a court. Bond and court information is drawn from the published log and is subject to change.