East Hartford neighborhood shattered by domestic violence, deadly police shooting

Lou Dattilio was outside his East Hartford home with his family on a pleasant Thursday evening when they heard screams from down the street. A man came out of the house at 95 Skyline Drive, flailing his arms and yelling incomprehensibly.

“He looked enraged,” Dattilio said.

Dattilio witnessed the prelude to a shocking burst of domestic violence in a quiet neighborhood that ended with a severely injured woman and a man _ identified Friday as John J. Carras, 43 _ shot dead by police. The woman was near death Thursday night, but her condition had begun to improve Friday, police said.

“There’s good cause for hope and we’re optimistic,” police spokesman Lt. Josh Litwin said.

Two officers who responded to the scene suffered minor injuries during a struggle with Carras and were treated at a nearby hospital. The officers are on administrative leave as called for by police policy, Litwin said.

“They are resting and tending to the injuries they sustained from the incident,” Officer Michael Weglarz said. “They are lucky they are alive and saved the woman’s life. Terrible situation all around.”

Two children were in the house at the time of the incident, Litwin said. They were not injured. Litwin would not say if one or both officers fired their guns, or if the Carras was believed to have a weapon.

Neither the officers nor the cruisers at the scene were equipped with cameras, said Windham State’s Attorney Anne Mahoney, who is investigating the shooting with help from state police Eastern District crime detectives. Litwin said the department intends to adopt body cameras, but has not finished the process to equip officers.

The trouble started at about 6:15 p.m., when dispatchers fielded a “panicked” call about an ongoing domestic attack at the raised ranch at Skyline and Lark drives. Arriving officers encountered a violent scene involving Carras and an unidentified woman. Carras fought with the officers, police said.

Police fired on Carras during the struggle. Police didn’t say how many shots were fired, how many times Carras was hit or whether one or both officers fired their weapons.

Dattilio had a view of the frightening events from his house. After Carras went back inside the house, after his apparent fit of rage, two children, a girl and a younger boy, came running from the home yelling, “Help! Help! He’s trying to kill my mother!” Dattilio said.

The girl, about 11, had called 911, but Carras had slapped the phone from her hand, Dattilio said she told him.

Dattilio has an injured foot, but his neighbor, a Connecticut National Guard soldier, was able to run over to help. The man told Dattilio later that Carras had been choking the woman on the kitchen floor, and yelled, “We’re all set here!” when the neighbor confronted him. The neighbor also called police.

The next thing Dattilio said he saw was an officer halfway up the deck stairs firing his weapon several times. He said he could see the muzzle flash.

Officer Frank Iacone, the police union president, said the officers saved the woman’s life.

“Thanks to the heroic actions of our officers, at least one and possibly more lives were saved last night. It’s a horrible situation for all involved,” he said.

Like the other neighbors, Dattilio said he never saw any foreshadowing of such violence from the couple. There was no history of domestic violence at the house, which is in a quiet neighborhood where serious crimes are uncommon, Litwin said. Tucked in the southeastern corner of town near the Manchester and Glastonbury lines, the area has many older residents, neighbors said.

"This is a wonderful, quiet neighborhood and these types of incidents are not frequent,” Litwin said

A woman who lives next door said Carras and his wife were always helpful to her, assisting her with leaf-raking and other chores. “Wonderful people,” said the elderly woman, who would not give her name.

Courant Staff Writer Zach Murdock contributed to this story.

Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com. Christine Dempsey can be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.

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