NAUGATUCK — A local man who tried to confront someone he thought was snooping around his apartment Sunday night ended up in the hospital after being stabbed in the stomach, police said.
The man, who witnesses said was in his 30s, saw Dwight Brown, 44 of New Britain, walk toward his door on the first floor of a multifamily house at 346 High St. about 11:40 p.m., police said. The man asked Brown what he was doing there, and Brown said he was visiting a friend who lived above the man in the same house, according to a police report.
Brown told police he tried to walk around the man. But he said the man punched him in the side of the face, setting off a fight, the report states. Brown said he grabbed the man in a bear hug, and they began rolling around and fighting on the ground.
Brown said he got on top of the man, and others nearby pulled him off. Brown said his 3-inch-long buck knife, which was attached to a sheath on his right hip, must have fallen off during the scuffle, according to the report.
“He grabbed the knife and came at me with some type of hard object in his hand and hit me in the forehead,” Brown told police.
He said the man then jabbed at his stomach with some kind of object in his hand and that he blocked the arm, the report states.
Brown said he went back up to his friend’s house, and noticed his knife and sheath were missing.
“I don’t know how he got stabbed,” Brown told police. “I quite honestly think he stabbed himself.”
Witnesses were interviewed, but nobody told police they saw a knife.
When police arrived, they saw the man with a 3-inch cut on his stomach just below his sternum and saw a piece of his intestine bulging out of skin, the report states. They questioned him briefly before he was taken by ambulance to a hospital. Police said hospital staff told them he had punctures to his stomach and liver but his intestines were OK.
Police could not interview the man because he was taken into emergency surgery and was not coherent when police wanted to talk to him. The report states they will try again to get his side of the story.
Brown was charged with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree breach of peace. He was being held in lieu of a $100,000 court-set bond as of Monday.
