Police: Homeless Man Arrested After Yelling, Swearing at Homeowner

A 61-year-old homeless man, Robert Houseworth, was arrested on a charge of interfering with an officer who was called to the scene Sunday afternoon when the man yelled and swore at a homeowner, police said.

Darien police gave this account of the incident:

The man who complained to police on Sunday had put a piece of furniture in his driveway on the 2700 block of Post Road near the Stamford border. A sign saying “Free” was attached to the furniture.

Houseworth — who gave a West Side Stamford address to police when later asked for his own address — came by sometime before 5:17 p.m. and asked if anything else in the driveway was also free. The homeowner said that none of it was, which made the homeless man irate.

He screamed “You’re evil!” and swore at the homeowner.

When a police officer was called to the scene, Houseworth had walked away, but was seen walking along Route 1 just over the Stamford border.

When the officer approached him, the man swore again and yelled at the officer, saying, “You’re in the wrong [expletive] town. This isn’t Darien.”

The officer said he wanted to speak with him. The man continued to yell profanities at him. The officer grabbed the arm of the homeless man’s jacket to get him to stop walking and talk with him.

At that point, the two were near a fire hydrant with a metal rod sticking up from it (the kind commonly used to identify a hydrant’s location if snow covers it). The homeless man grabbed it and tried to strike the officer with it, although the officer wasn’t hit.

He was arrested on a charge of interfering with an officer. The homeowner, meanwhile, told police he didn’t want to press charges.

Houseworth was held on $500 bond, which he did not post. He has remained in jail since then. He has appeared in state Superior Court in Stamford, where his bond was not lowered. He faces an unrelated disorderly conduct charge from Stamford police.

Houseworth has a long record of criminal charges for minor offenses (including an accusation of yelling profanities) in Darien, where he has sometimes camped out, and some in Stamford.