Police found more than a dozen catalytic converters while investigating a theft in Norwalk early Wednesday morning and said the suspects hit a police vehicle.
Police said someone who was working overnight at a business on Water Street called police after hearing a grinding noise from a nearby parking lot and seeing one person keeping watch while another was under the vehicle with something that looked like a reciprocating.
The first officers who responded saw a black BMW with no headlights and the driver sped up and hit the police car while trying to get away, according to police.
Officers couldn’t see in the vehicle because of heavy tinting and they pointed their weapons at the vehicle and ordered anyone inside to come out, police said, but no one in the vehicle did.
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At that point, an officer used a baton to break the driver’s window to see inside and the two people inside finally obeyed the officers’ commands.
The driver and passenger were taken from the vehicle and into custody, police said.
Witnesses told police that the two men had removed one catalytic converter from one vehicle and were interrupted while trying to retrieve another, police said.
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When officers searched the BMW, they found 13 catalytic converters that they said appeared to have been recently cut from vehicles.
Police said they were able to connect the pair to other catalytic converter thefts in the area as well.
Both suspects are due in court on March 29.
