West Haven police have arrested a man with a criminal past who is accused of seriously assaulting a woman in her own home on Wednesday afternoon.
According to police, a woman in her 30s came home around 2:30 p.m. to find a man sitting on her front stairs.
He told her he was waiting for a cab, then knocked on the door of her home on Nonquit Street door and asked to use the telephone.
As the woman walked to get the phone, Michael Cooper, 30, of 280 Popular Street New Haven, charged her and choked her from behind, causing her to lose consciousness, police said.
The victim awoke on the living room floor to Cooper pouring a caustic household cleaning fluid in her face and on her body, police said.
Cooper threatened to kill her if she didn't give him her purse and vehicle keys, then ran out of the home and took her 2005 Toyota Camry, police said.
The victim then ran to the home of a neighbor, who called 911.
Local
Police from West Haven and New Haven, as well as State Police started a massive search.
Authorities found the car on Wednesday evening in the area of Whalley Avenue and Anthony Street in New Haven after a pursuit by New Haven Police and CT State Police.
"The cops came, knocked on my door... and they said they were looking for someone that was armed and dangerous," explained Patricia McKay, who lives in the New Haven neighborhood where the car was found.
While police had the car, Cooper ran in the Whalley Avenue and Davis Street, area of New Haven, police said.
Around 7 p.m., West Haven detectives were interviewing a witness in the case in the area of Rangely and Sycaway, when someone matching the assailan't description walked by.
West Haven detectives detained him, arrested him after a struggle and found the victim’s ID in his pocket, police said.
Police said Cooper is a convicted felon with numerous previous arrests.
He has been charged with home invasion, strangulation in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the second degree, robbery in the second degree, assault in the second degree, larceny in the third degree, unlawful restraint in the first degree, interfere with an officer/resisting, violation of probation and failure to appear in the second degree.
He is held on $500,000 bond and will be arraigned today in Milford Court.
More charges are possible, police said.
