#Bridgeport CT (June 19, 2015) – A Monroe man was jailed on $500,000 bond after police apprehended him with five guns, including two assault weapons, that investigators believe he intended to sell to a drug dealer.
The seizure and arrest was made by the Statewide Urban Violence Cooperative Crime Control Task Force, which is a joint task force that consists of Bridgeport Police, the Connecticut State Police and Department of Corrections. Their goal is to identify and target violence related to firearms in the city of Bridgeport.
The task force was conducting surveillance in the area of North and Park avenues in an unrelated investigation when officers noticed a white pickup truck parked in the lot of a nearby fast-food restaurant. The driver, however, never exited the vehicle and was looking around as if he was waiting for someone.
Through their training and experience, the officers suspected he might be waiting to purchase narcotics. Addicts often meet their dealers in public parking lots. Never exiting the truck, the driver pulled out of the restaurant lot. Task force members followed and contacted a patrol officer to pull over the driver for a seatbelt violation.
When the officer activated his lights and sirens, the driver, later identified as Robert Nolan, 30, of Monroe, made an abrupt turn into a Benham Avenue driveway.
Nolan ignored officers’ instructions and was reaching around the interior of the vehicle. When he did exit the car, police saw a gun holster on his hip and detained him. As police investigated further, they recovered a loaded .40-caliber handgun and two magazines, two AR-15-style assault weapons and a .308 sniper rifle loaded with tracer rounds.
Nolan told police that the guns belonged to him and that over the last few years had been purchasing guns in Vermont where gun laws are less strict. “Mr. Nolan said he came to Bridgeport to meet a friend, who was going to hook him up with a drug dealer who was willing to pay him between $5,000 and $10,000 for the weapons,” said Police Chief Joseph L. Gaudett Jr. “He also indicated that he was addicted to heroin.”
“The members of the task force followed their instincts and prevented these very dangerous weapons from ending up on the street in the possession of a drug dealer.”
Straw gun buyers are dangerous source of illegal guns that plague cities across the country, Gaudett said. In most cases, weapons are purchased legally and the straw buyer then sells them on the street for a profit or trades them for drugs.
Nolan faces five counts of illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle, five counts of illegal possession of a firearm, two counts of carrying a pistol without a permit, five counts of attempted illegal sale of a firearm, five counts of attempted firearms trafficking, two counts of possession of an assault weapon, two counts of transportation of a loaded assault weapon in a motor vehicle and six counts of possession of an illegal high-capacity magazine.
(Edited City of Bridgeport Press Release)
