Conn. men charged with inciting police chases

EAST HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- 3 East Haven men are facing a list of charges after police say they went flying down the street on ATVs trying to get police to chase them.

They've apparently been shooting it on video and posting it online.

"Everytime they'd come out 911's start lighting up," said Sergeant Joe Murgo, East Haven Police.

The ATV's don't have any safety features like lights and blinkers and they weren't just riding on roads but on highways, putting themselves and drivers in danger.

"We have it on camera where they've ran red lights, ran intersections, and they've almost gotten hit," said Sergeant Murgo.

One of the popular spots for these men is along Charter Oak and Main, a very busy spot. Police say the men would ride right by them looking to be chased while one of them was recording.

"They had those cameras strapped to their helmets and the vehicle behind them capturing what they were doing from the car too," said Sergeant Murgo.

On several occasions police saw them doing doughnuts and wheelies all while looking right at them.

"They were pretty vocal, you know, telling us to come get them and let us get close to them, we'd light them up, give us the finger, things like that," said Sergeant Murgo.

"Swearing too," asked News 8's Erin Logan.

"Absolutely, yep," said Sergeant Murgo.

Police say it was tips on the departments facebook page that helped them identify the 3 men.

They charged 27-year-old Michael Esposito and 28-year-old Joseph Arcangelo with reckless driving and other crimes. 29-year-old Mark Mastracchio is accused of recording the stunts from a car.

"What was the point," asked News 8's Logan.

"They wanted to be famous, I guess. They wanted to have...one of their facebook pages said help us get to 100,000 likes. They had a couple hundred likes so they wanted to be famous, you know, go viral," said Sergeant Murgo.