Danbury, Fairfield County | featured news

RIDGEFIELD — Cars, mailboxes, traffic signs and driveway lights on at least nine different roads were spray painted sometime between Wednesday and Thursday, police said.

The department received several calls Thursday morning from residents reporting being targeted, according to a news release.

A Danbury pet shop owner who’s facing animal cruelty charges has closed one of his two New York stores, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported Wednesday.

Puppies & Kittens, located in the Dutchess Shopping Plaza on Route 9 in Wappingers Falls, closed on Sept. 30, the building’s landlord told the newspaper.

DANBURY — The police department has promoted two officers this week, and one of them is making history as the city’s first female sergeant. LaFantano, who previously worked as a police officer in Newtown, received Unit Citations in 2011 and 2012.

Mase, a registered nurse and a bodybuilder, admitted he purchased steroids from another member of the conspiracy and distributed them to others, including athletes who competed in bodybuilding competitions.

Federal authorities said Sgt. Steven Santucci, a longtime Newtown police sergeant who resigned after his arrest in the spring, imported drugs from China, repackaged them in a clandestine home laboratory, and distributed them to bodybuilders in local gyms.

An employee at the Southbury Training School was charged last week with illegally collecting workers’ compensation benefits while earning thousands of dollars working as a bail bondswoman, state prosecutors said Monday.

After she reported suffering a work-related injury in July 2014 while working at the training school, Griffin received nearly $68,000 in workers’ comp through August 2015, according to the arrest affidavit.

When officers arrived, they were told a man had stolen several Dyson vacuums and fled through an emergency exit door, police said.

Police said surveillance footage of the suspect stealing Dyson vacuums in the two towns and fleeing with the same car helped identify him as Paul Venezia, 32, of Sherman Road in New Milford.

[...] one expert described the region’s recent experience as an “almost mirror image” of most American towns.

The FBI describes violent crime as murder and non-negligent homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.

Bethel Police Chief Jeffrey Finch said the FBI’s annual crime reports are good “guidelines” but must be used with caution, because not every police department reports data to the FBI and that the federal agency doesn’t always audit the numbers.

The FBI report does not include individual crime rates from towns like New Fairfield and Southbury, which take par

Burnes was one of three long-serving officers who moved up the ranks following a rare simultaneous promotion last month.

The Bethel resident is pursuing a master’s degree in public administration from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He also has degrees in criminal justice and public safety administration.

Before the promotion, he was a field training coordinator and was in charge of the department’s major accident team.

Besides working at the middle school, Burnes has run the department’s car seat technician program.

Two other men were charged with criminal mischief in late August for driving on the East Ridge Middle School ball field, which police said caused nearly $3,000 in damage.

After an investigation, police learned Beatty was responsible for the Shadow Lake field incident, and he turned himself in this week, according to the report.

DANBURY — Police are seeking the public’s help tracking the final hours before a city man was found injured and unconscious on Clapboard Ridge Road four months ago.

When he was found, Ramirez was wearing an orange short-sleeved polo shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes, police said.