Fairfields Detective Unit is investigating an incident in which an M-80 firework exploded in the face of a 26-year-old New York City man early Sunday morning in the towns Greenfield Hill neighborhood.
Police, responding to a report of a fireworks' complaint at 3:05 a.m., observed a black Audi with four men inside pull into a driveway on Brett Street. The injured man, sitting in the right rear passenger seat of the car, had a significant amount of blood on the right side of his face due to the exploding M-80 which is the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite.
"He said he went to throw a firework out the window and it exploded in the car," reported Police Sgt. James Perez, a department spokesman. "He received a cut on the right side of his face and had darkness consistent with gunpowder on the right side of his face. He sustained just a small cut and powder burns." The window closest to the victim shattered but remained in place due to its tinting.
Police theorized that the man may have forgotten to roll down the window before he lit the M-80, although neither police nor firefighters could confirm that. The man was taken by ambulance to St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, where he was treated and released.
Perez said that none of the cars occupants were cooperating with police and that an investigation into the incident was continuing. One man is a Fairfield resident and another is from Easton; the hometown of the fourth is not yet known.
In 1966, M-80s and cherry bombs were banned by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Child Protection Act of 1966.
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