Woman remains under guard after bank incident

WINSTED — A distraught Winsted woman remains under psychiatric evaluation and police guard after she held up a local bank here last Friday afternoon, allegedly in the hope of being shot by police.

Quick action by local police officers helped to subdue June Lawlor, 29, of Bridge Street,
who faces numerous charges after she entered the TD Bank branch in Ledgebrook Plaza brandishing a pellet gun around 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 16.

Lawlor forced bank employees into a corner and told one of them to call 911 because she wanted a police officer to shoot her through the window, police said.

During the incident, Lawlor allegedly made a point to tell bank employees that this was not a robbery and not about money.

After members of the Winsted Police Department arrived on the scene, Officer Joe Milhomens was able to tackle the woman, bringing her down to the floor and knocking away the pellet gun, Dept. Chief Robert Scannell said.

“He spotted her being rather inattentive and took advantage of it,� Scannell said.

Officers Tim O’Connor and John Marchi assisted in taking Lawlor into custody.

“It was not obvious that it was a pellet gun. From a distance it would look like a 9 millimeter,� Scannell said. “But the officers’ quick, decisive action brought the situation to a safe conclusion.�

Lawlor was later transported to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington for psychiatric evaluation, where she remains in police custody.

“We’re still guarding her,� Scannell said Wednesday.

Lawlor has been charged with threatening, reckless endangerment, breach of peace, kidnapping, brandishing a facsimile firearm and carrying a dangerous weapon. She is being held on a $100,000 bond.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less