Police: Middlefield Man in Tux Walking in Street Endangers Drivers, Fights With Cops

A 20-year-old intoxicated Middlefield man in a tuxedo walking in the middle of the street in Middletown caused a disturbance on a quiet residential street, then endangered several motorists and a couple on a motorcycle, according to Middletown Police.

On June 22 at 7:39 p.m., police were called about a drunk male near Coleman Road, who, the report says, was walking down the road and getting in the way of motorists. This is a residential area of town near the Durham town line.

Jesse John Bartlett, 20, of 167 Main Street, was yelling at the complainant while wearing a black tuxedo T-shirt and black pants, a report says. Police report he entered a car just before police arrived and took off.

The caller said Bartlett was yelling and screaming toward her on her front porch, tried to stop a traveling car and continued to walk toward the home. The caller went outside, and Bartlett allegedly screamed and swore at her in a nonsensical manner. Bartlett, the report says, demanded to talk to a particular officer once the woman told him she had called police. The husband came outside and Bartlett allegedly yelled for him to "go get his home boy."

The report says it looked like he stopped a car driving by, a tan Chrysler, by standing in the street and slapping his hands on the hood, got inside, and it drove away, according to the witness.

Police found him walking at Long Lane and Wadsworth Street in the center of the road, the report says. He quickened his pace, police say, but didn't stop walking and refused to stop. He struggled extensively with officers, yelled and swore at them, the report says, and tried to spit at them, but "his mouth was too dry," the report says.

Several people pulled up in car saying Bartlett had jumped in front of their cars; a couple on a motorcycle said he had almost killed them, the report says. "Bartlett's moods went from crying to swearing and yelling and wanting to fight us," the report says. A search revealed two knives on him, police say, and he was wearing "heavy steel-toe boots" which he was kicking at officers with.

He was carried to the cruise as he refused to walk, police say. When driving to headquarters, Bartlett allegedly didn't have memory of why he was arrested and said he "just left his best friend's wedding" and during booking became "angered and appeared to want to fight us," the report says.

By 10:21 p.m., police say he had sobered up and "admitted to having an alcohol problem" and "no program he had gone to had helped," after enrolling in a DUI program after an arrest by Connecticut State Police on Feb. 10, 2012.

He was charged with interfering with an officer, two counts breach of peace, threatening, second-degree reckless endangerment.