Suspect Arrested After Stolen-Car Fleeing
- Westport police say they arrested Anthony Britt, 30, of Stamford after a stolen BMW X4 from New Jersey entered town and then fled. - Officers tracked the SUV around Compo Beach, flattened its tires with Stop Sticks near I-95, then caught Britt with a police dog around 4 a.m. - Two other people ran from the BMW and are still unidentified, which means the case is now partly an arrest story and partly a manhunt.
A stolen BMW from New Jersey rolled into Westport before dawn, and that turned into a chase, a tire-deflation stop, and one arrest. The basic stakes are simple — stolen-car cases move fast, and when multiple people bail out and run, police are suddenly dealing with more than just a property crime. This one ended with a Stamford man in custody, but not with the whole group accounted for. Anthony Britt, 30, now faces a felony motor-vehicle larceny charge, while two other people who got out of the SUV are still missing. (westportjournal.com) ### What actually happened? Police say the BMW X4 had been stolen from a New Jersey home the day before. When the vehicle entered Westport, officers were alerted, located it, and followed it through the Compo Beach area. The chase did not stay local for long — officers set up a perimeter and used a Stop Stick tire-deflation device on the Sherwood Island Connector near the southbound Interstate 95 ramp at Exit 18. (westportjournal.com) ### Why did police know the car was stolen? The key piece here is Westport’s license-plate-reader system. The department says it uses real-time alerts to flag vehicles tied to criminal investigations and other law-enforcement events. So this was not an officer randomly noticing a suspicious SUV — the car had alr(westportjournal.com)own. (westportct.gov) ### How did the stop turn into a foot chase? The Stop Sticks damaged the BMW enough that it kept going only to around Exit 6 before it could not continue. Then three people got out and ran. That is the part that changes the shape of the story. A stolen-vehicle stop is one thing. Three suspects scattering i(westportct.gov)nd who may have known the car was stolen. (westportjournal.com) ### Who got arrested? Police caught Britt, a Stamford resident, with help from a police dog at about 4 a.m. He was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle, first offense, which is a felony. He was released without bail and is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Stamford on June 16. That court date matters b(westportjournal.com)secutors start locking down the facts. (westportjournal.com) ### What about the other two people? They have not been caught. That means the case is still open in a very literal sense. One suspect is identified and charged, but investigators are still trying to figure out who else was in the SUV and what role each person played. If police tie the others to the theft or the flight, more charges could follow. (westportjournal.com) ### Why does the New Jersey detail matter? Because it suggests the case crossed state lines before Westport officers ever saw the vehicle. That does not automatically make it a bigger conspiracy, but it does make the timeline more important — where the BMW was taken, who had it in between, and how it ended up in coastal Connecticut a day later. Interstate stolen-car cases often hinge on that chain of possession. (westportjournal.com) ### Is this just one isolated arrest? Probably not in the broader sense. Westport police have been leaning on plate-reader alerts as a routine tool, and Connecticut departments have spent months warning about car thefts and stolen vehicles moving quickly between towns. So this arrest looks like one clean example(westportjournal.com)pears again. (westportct.gov) ### Bottom line One stolen BMW, one felony charge, two people still gone — that is where things stand. The arrest closed the chase, but it did not close the case. (westportjournal.com)
