Long Wharf Theatre staffer and former Planned Parenthood director Tim Yergeau, 35, was found dead in his New Haven, CT apartment after the police raided his apartment as part of a child pornography investigation.
New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson, speaking about the suicide to Hearst Connecticut Media Group on Wednesday, said, “The person who died was definitely the suspect in a child pornography investigation and the person who committed suicide.”
Continuing, Jacobson said, according to The New Haven Independent, “It was an open investigation, so he knew he was going to be arrested.” Yergeau’s electronic devices had been searched during the raid but he had not been arrested yet at the time of his suicide. The Blaze, reporting on the raid and Yeargeau’s past, said:
Yergeau had previously worked as the director of strategic communications for the Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.
Police botched the raid at Yergeau’s apartment on April 6 when they accidentally went to the wrong residence and broke down the door to his neighbor’s unit. The neighbor, Stacey Wezenter, said they raided her apartment and placed her in handcuffs before realizing they were at the wrong apartment.
“I started running down the hallway, it was just like a movie. They had guns and flashlights on me,” Wezenter recalled. “They put me against the wall and handcuffed me.
Further, in December 2018, Yergeau posted, “Excited to announce that today I start a new job on the marketing/communications team at Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. Excited to be working on issues I’m passionate about: healthcare access, reproductive and sexual health, diversity and inclusion, civic engagement, and voting rights.”
His Instagram page was largely devoted to leftist causes, particularly LGBTQ-related ones and pro-abortion messaging, as the Daily Wire reported, saying:
Yergeau promoted leftist and LGBTQ causes on his social media. In one Instagram post, Yergeau showed a picture of Planned Parenthood buttons with rainbows on them. Another photo showed Yergeau sporting a shirt with the common pro-abortion talking point, “Bans Off Our Bodies,” printed on it.
Wezenter, whose apartment was accidentally raided when the police meant to raid Yergeau, was quite upset about the botched raid and the potential danger of it, saying, “What if I had a gun permit? What if I came down the hallway with a gun? Would I have gotten shot? What if my 4-year-old had woken up? Would they have shot him? You just don’t do that to people.”
She also said that she had been watching a show in which a child is shot by police officers before going to bed and “That’s what I went to sleep to — only to be woken up at 6 a.m. to the New Haven Police Department Special Victims unit busting my door open, screaming that they have a search warrant. It was straight out of a movie.”
Chief Jacobson, in response to criticism of the raid, said, “Unfortunately, a mistake was made. We feel for the woman and we’re going to do everything we can to make it right. The investigation is part of holding my department accountable and transparent.“
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