Police: Waterbury Man’s Online Date Ends in Violent Carjacking

We all know how hard it can be to find that one person who can be considered significant enough to be donned with the title, "significant other." These days, however, we don't just have to rely on the local grocery store or dive bar to find love, we've got the vast ocean known as the internet to draw our fish from. While being able to connect with people of common interest across the globe has certainly changed life as we know it for the better, from time to time -- as with anything else, really -- online dating can open users up to some seriously non-desirable situations.

One Waterbury man was exposed to this unfortunate truth this past weekend, when we showed up to Winthrop Avenue in New Haven, in hopes to meet the girl of dreams.

According to a press release from Officer Hartman of the New Haven Police Department, officers showed up to Winthrop Ave. at 7:15 AM on Saturday morning (Dec. 10) to investigate a report that a victim had his car stolen after he was held up at gun point. When the officers arrived, however, the victim was no where to be found.

Thankfully, nearby witnesses were able to describe the crime, and provide the police with surveillance footage from a security camera. The report says that the footage shows a man, armed with a handgun, struggling with the victim. As the struggle continued, the gun was dropped, and as the suspected carjacker tried to pick it up, the victim took off running.

When police were finally able to locate the 27-year-old victim from Waterbury, he revealed that he had come to the Elm City expecting to meet with a woman he had met online. Unknowingly being catfished, he was instructed to pick the woman up at an ally next to a building, and she'd be there waiting. That's when he was attacked. The NHPD says that the victim described the same incident that the responding officers had already seen on the surveillance footage, prompting them to issue a BOLO (Be on the lookout) for a Honda missing a door handle and a rear spoiler, and driving with a doughnut tire on the passenger side.

Around 1:53 PM that afternoon, a patrolling officer spotted the allegedly stolen Honda headed down East St. toward Humphrey St., filled with people. While arranging to stop the car with other officers, the driver of the Honda in question changed direction and took off, resulting in a pursuit.

The Honda then crashed on Sherman Avenue, and the occupants scattered, but the New Haven officers were able to apprehend the two men pictured above. 21-year-old, Fred Adams of New Haven was arrested and charged with possession of over four ounces of a controlled substance, while 20-year-old Shayvon Avery Bethea-Frazier, also of New Haven, was charged with possession of marijuana.

The New Haven Police Department are still investigating, and have not charged anyone with the carjacking as of yet.