Police from Darien and state police pursued a suspicious vehicle on Interstate 95 Thursday afternoon and arrested the driver and one of the passengers, Darien police said.
Police gave this account of the incident, including accusations not proven in court:
At about 2:21 p.m., Connecticut state police told Darien police that a driver on I-95 reported that a vehicle in the southbound lanes not only had what looked like fresh damage, but one of the several male passengers seemed to be holding a gun to the head of the female driver.
Police were told that the vehicle got off at Exit 11. Darien police alerted all on-duty Darien officers and nearby law enforcement agencies. Soon afterward, Officer Kelly Thurston saw a vehicle matching the description re-entering the highway northbound-lanes entrance at Exit 11. She followed it.
Near Exit 13, she activated her emergency lights and siren in order to pull over the vehicle, which pulled onto the right shoulder — then sped off in an attempt to get away from Thurston.
As the pursuit continued on the highway, state police said they’d located the vehicle on surveillance cameras, and it had left the highway at Exit 17. That exit goes to the Saugatuck section of Westport.
Officers and police detectives from Darien, along with state troopers, arrived on the scene and took the driver and passengers into custody.
Police did not find any evidence that anyone had a gun, and they released three of the four passengers, charging the other one with possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia.
The driver, Danielle Green, 40, of Eastover Street in Waterbury, was charged with engaging police in pursuit, driving while under the influence and driving with a suspended license. The passenger, Jonathan Nieves, 43, of Rockhurst Drive, Waterbury, was charged with possession of narcotics and possession of drug paraphernalia.
In their announcement, Darien police thanked “several agencies that assisted in this effort today, including the Connecticut state police, the Westport Police Department, the Norwalk Police Department, and the Department of Motor Vehicles Police Department.”