And the story of the Riverside groper (abductor?) gets creepier

More details on the arrest last week of our new friend and neighbor from Mexico way

Warrant: Video showed Stamford EMT stalked Greenwich students before grabbing girl on way to school

GREENWICH — A 31-year-old volunteer Stamford EMT was arrested Monday after Greenwich police said surveillance footage, license plate data and inconsistencies in his own statement linked him to the grabbing of a middle school student on her way to school earlier this fall, according to the arrest warrant. 

Hector J. Romero Vargas, 31, of Port Chester, N.Y., was arrested Monday on charges of second-degree unlawful restraint, fourth-degree sexual assault, first-degree stalking, second-degree reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a child and second-degree breach of peace. 

He has been held on $250,000 bond since his arrest, according to court records. 

(Is it worth pointing out that had he stayed in Port Chester under the protection of New York State laws, he’d probably have been released without bail? And given an apology for the inconvenience he’d suffered?)

Romero Vargas was arrested after a nearly two-month investigation that began on the morning of Sept. 11, when a student reported that a man approached her from behind on the paved pathway of the Eastern Middle School tennis courts and briefly restrained her in what she described as a "bear hug," according to the arrest warrant. 

The student had a backpack and a sports bag, "which partially obstructed the contact and prevented the suspect from making full body contact
with her back and buttocks as he attempted to pull her closer into his body," police said in the warrant. 

The girl was able to break free and the suspect "hastily fled," police said. The girl was able to see the man's profile and the clothes he was wearing, which included a dark-colored hat, sunglasses, a dark-colored long-sleeve top, light-colored shorts and dark-colored sneakers.

Following the incident, Greenwich police obtained surveillance video throughout the neighborhood and the video showed a man in sunglasses, baseball hat and a dark-colored long-sleeve shirt and light-colored shorts running from the direction of the path seconds after the girl escaped, according to the warrant. The man is also seen running toward the crosswalk at the corner of Breezemont Avenue and Lockwood Road. 

Minutes later, a dark-colored Nissan Altima was seen parking near the crosswalk the girl used daily, police said. 

Looking at surveillance video from Sept. 10, the day before the incident, police discovered the same man and vehicle had been in the area in the morning, trailing the girl at a distance on the same route to school. 

Detective Allen Arrington described those actions in the warrant as being "consistent with a 'dry run,' or stalking activity designed to monitor the victim's routine."

A review of license plate readers across Greenwich identified the car as a 2013 Altima registered to Vargas, police said. 

I don’t like this part:

“The vehicle, police said, showed a pattern of early-morning travel into Greenwich, including a stop on Sept. 4 outside another elementary school where a parent had reported a man in sunglasses sitting in a parked car and staring toward the playground.”

Romero Vargas is next scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 4.