Video report by Mike Krafcik, Fox CT
Text by David Owens and Brian Dowling, Hartford Courant
MIDDLETOWN — Police are looking for a violent registered sex offender who walked away from Connecticut Valley Hospital on Friday.
David Lane, 38, is a black man who is 6-1 and 220 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and red and white sneakers, police said.
He is a registered sex offender and has violent tendencies, police said. He was convicted in November 1998 of first-degree sexual assault. Police also hold a warrant for his arrest for failure to keep his sex offender registration up to date.
Middletown police said they were notified by police at CVH about 8:30 p.m. Friday that Lane walked away from the state psychiatric hospital.
Anyone who sees him or who has any information is asked to call 911. Police said people should not approach Lane.
State Rep. Matthew Lesser, whose district includes Middletown, said there were communications issues between the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and police when Lane left the facility. No emergency call was made and the media were not notified even though Lane was known to be violent and the mental health facility was in a residential neighborhood, Lesser said.
“Right now, there seems to be finger-pointing,” Lesser said.
Mary Kate Mason, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which runs CVH, said Saturday that she could not comment specifically on any patient, but said there are varying degrees of supervision at the hospital.
Some patients live in more secure environments than others, she said. Typically, as patients progress with treatment, they gain privileges that allow them to walk around the campus, in some cases unsupervised, she said.