From Can Collector To Bomb Suspect

A 22-year-old man who regularly returns bottles for cash at Stop & Shop was picking up empty cans on Orange Street when he found three metal canisters.

He decided to throw those objects away after noticing how rusty they were — an action that ended up snarling downtown traffic for hours, having City Hall evacuated, activating the city police’s bomb squad, and leading to his arrest on three felony and two misdemeanor charges.

Robert Cardone, Jr. offered that explanation for his actions to city police, as detailed in a police report written by Officer Jonathan Faya-Sanchez.

City police wound up arresting Cardone on three felony counts of first-degree breach of peace, one misdemeanor count of first-degree criminal trespass, and one misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal mischief following a bomb scare outside the municipal office at 200 Orange St. on Friday morning.

Faya-Sanchez’s police report makes clear that, at least according to what Cardone told officers that day, he did not intend to cause any harm by throwing several metal canisters around 200 Orange. Police recognized him as someone who regularly drops off bottles for money at the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop, which is where Cardone was ultimately found and arrested on Friday.

“Robert told me that he was walking through the construction site on Orange Street collecting empty cans when he noticed three oval-shaped metal objects and picked them up,” Faya-Sanchez wrote when summarizing his interview with Cardone on Friday. ​“Robert told me that he thought the objects would be useful to him, but when he noticed they were rusty, he decided to throw them away. Robert mentioned that he did not do it intentionally and did not intend to cause any disturbance.”

This interview took place amid an hours-long scare and investigation around a potential bomb threat downtown.

Police Chief Karl Jacobson told the Independent on Thursday that he needs to look further into the details of this case before commenting on the exact reasons for these felony and misdemeanor charges against Cardone. But, he said, in general, ​“these charges are put in place so people making threats don’t continue to do it.” Courts have given police more ​“teeth” to clamp down on potential threats to the public. ​“It’s something to eliminate the threats.”

City Hall and 200 Orange were evacuated and city police closed off portions of Elm Street and Orange Street for roughly four hours on Friday as they investigated a report from a city employee who said he saw a suspicious person throw several long metal canisters in the vicinity of 200 Orange.

Those canisters wound up being empty and harmless. A suspect, later identified as Cardone, was arrested within two and a half hours of the original complaint being called in.

NHPD Capt. Nicholas Marcucio and Mayor Justin Elicker stressed at the time just how important it is to remain vigilant and take seriously potential threats to public safety like this.

The state court’s online criminal database shows that Cardone has not yet entered a plea to these charges, and is currently being held on a $25,000 bond. His next hearing in this case — and a dozen other criminal cases that have been statutorily sealed, preventing the charges from being viewed publicly — is scheduled for Sept. 19.

Faya-Sanchez’s arrest report and several supplemental police reports filed by other officers involved in Cardone’s arrest shed some light on Cardone’s perspective on what happened Friday.

Faya-Sanchez wrote that, at 7.26 a.m. Friday, he was dispatched to 200 Orange St. for the report of a suspicious person. The notes provided to him by dispatch included that a man with a backpack who ​“looks suspicious” had four or five unidentified objects with him as he walked up Orange Street by the federal building behind City Hall. ​“CONCERNED THEY MAY BE BOMBS,” one such dispatch note read.

Faya-Sanchez interviewed the city employee who had called police about the suspicious person. That city employee told Fara-Sanchez that the man had thrown a few ​“pipes” by 200 Orange. Faya-Sanchez found those objects, each ​“an oval metal cylinder”: one in the empty lot next to 200 Orange and one in the bushes in front of 200 Orange.

“The objects looked like some kind of improvised explosive as they had a white tip in the shape of a detonator,” Faya-Sanchez wrote.

So Faya-Sanchez called for police support, and told the city employee to inform his colleagues at the site to evacuate. After police had established a perimeter, a passerby warned police that a third similar object had been found further down Orange Street. ​“Additional units were able to secure the area where the third object was while we waited for the bomb squad to arrive on the scene.”

Faya-Sanchez then broadcast the description of the suspect over the police radio, and promptly heard back from three colleagues who had located the suspect, Cardone, walking by the Stop & Shop on Whalley Avenue. Cardone was put in handcuffs and placed in the back of a police cruiser.

Police were able to so quickly find Cardone thanks in part to Officer Christopher Lawrence, who filed a supplemental report in Cardone’s case.

Lawrence wrote that Officer Joe Staffieri contacted him at 10:25 a.m. Friday and said officers were looking for Cardone for questioning. Staffieri sent along a picture of Cardone.

Lawrence told Staffieri that he sees Cardone ​“daily” at the 150 Whalley Ave. Stop & Shop ​“canning.”

“This is where he returns cans for money at the bottle return.”

Lawrence went to Stop & Shop and found out that Cardone had been at the grocery store earlier that day. ​“While walking back to my cruiser I observed Robert in the lot pushing a cart.” He was wearing a black ​“wife beater,” dark shorts, and socks and slippers.

Prior to Cardone being transported downtown to be interviewed by the police’s bomb squad, Cardone’s backpack was ​“searched for possible contraband or dangerous items. None were found.”

The city employee who first called in the suspicious person report told police that he was ​“85% sure” that Cardone was the person he saw throwing the canisters by 200 Orange.

Faya-Sanchez read Cardone the Miranda Rights, and then asked him what happened. That’s when Cardone told him he was just collecting cans, and didn’t intend to cause any harm. Faya-Sanchez wrote that a warrant check with the New Haven Police Records Division revealed ​“negative results.”

Cardone was then transported to the corner of Orange and Court streets to be interviewed by the bomb squad, and was subsequently charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors.