Former officer went from police training to theft within hours

Warrant describes actions of alleged ‘serial burglar’ while serving on force

— A former Connecticut police officer and suspected “serial burglar” was arrested Wednesday in connection with stealing a cash register from a restaurant hours after he completed a training session at his police station, documents show.

Patrick Hemingway, a former Glastonbury and New Britain police officer, was served an arrest warrant Wednesday in state Superior Court in Middletown charging him with breaking into the Loco Perro Restaurant in East Hampton, documents show.

The warrant also said a man dressed in the same clothing as the Loco Perro burglar and driving the same black Jeep tried to break into a second East Hampton restaurant minutes later. It was unclear whether the suspect made off with anything or whether charges in that case are pending.

Hemingway is suspected of burglarizing businesses in other Middlesex County towns, including Middlefield and Durham, as well as in Old Saybrook — a break-in that he was charged with last month. In total, Hemingway, 37, of Glastonbury, is suspected of committing more than 45 burglaries in three states, police said — all while he was a cop.

“He’s a suspect in some 45 burglaries statewide,” Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer Cooper said Wednesday during Hemingway’s arraignment.

Wethersfield detectives were the first to zero-in on Hemingway as a possible suspect. Wethersfield police arrested him on Nov. 15 after police from Old Saybrook served the first burglary warrant. Hemingway is accused of burglarizing a Wethersfield shop in February and an Old Saybrook pizza restaurant in May.

Hemingway’s first arrest wasn’t on a burglary charge, though. The National Guardsman, who had an unremarkable, 14-year police career, was arrested on computer crime and false statement charges in September because, according to the warrant, he was using a Glastonbury Police Department law enforcement system to determine whether investigators were onto him.

The arrest warrant affidavit for the computer crime charges described Hemingway as a “serial burglar.”

“It is suspected ... that Patrick was a serial burglar while employed as a police officer at the Glastonbury Police Department,”

the warrant said. The Glastonbury burglaries took place between February and June of this year, the warrant said, although others happened earlier. He had not been charged with burglaries in Glastonbury as of Wednesday.

That warrant, submitted by Western District Crime detectives with the Connecticut State Police to lessen the chances of a conflict of interest, stated that all of the break-ins were at businesses and included crimes in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

In the East Hampton Loco Perro case, an arrest warrant charging Hemingway with third-degree burglary, first-degree criminal mischief and sixth-degree larceny indicated that police began investigating after an alarm went off in the building at 181 E. High St. about 1:50 a.m. March 8.

The owner told investigators his video security system showed an “unidentified party enter his business and remove a cash register” before fleeing in a vehicle, according to the warrant.

The suspect was wearing a black, hooded jacket with distinct markings, green pants, a mask and gloves, video showed, the warrant said. The man used what appeared to be a tool to open a door that later was found unsecured, held his flashlight in a “police/military manner” and then removed a cash register, police said in the warrant. He broke a printer when it fell on the floor as he was leaving, the warrant said. The burglar took between $150 and $200, the owner told police, according to the warrant.

A man dressed in a similar fashion was caught on video also trying to break into the Lakeside Bar and Grill in East Hampton, police said. Through “intelligence sharing” with other departments also investigating burglaries, police determined the clothing and the vehicle matched incidents that had occurred in other towns since February, the warrant said.

Just hours before the Loco Perro burglary, Hemingway had been at work at the Glastonbury Police Department completing in-service training, the warrant said. Glastonbury police video shows a black Jeep leaving the department’s parking lot at about 10 p.m., the warrant said. The warrant noted that Hemingway was wearing “an identical item of clothing and driving the same type of vehicle” in the Wethersfield burglary.

A judge ordered Hemingway held in lieu of a $20,000 bond — a moot point since he already was being held in lieu of $1 million bail in the computer case and $65,000 in the two other burglaries. He is to appear again at Middletown court Jan. 5.