Tracy Ganino couldn’t get away from the media storm that followed Faisal Shahzad’s trail Tuesday.
Ganino, a Long Hill Avenue resident, lives on the same street where Shahzad once owned a two-story house.
And Ganino works down the street from Shahzad’s more recent apartment on Sheridan Road in Bridgeport.
Since Shahzad was taken into custody late Monday for his alleged role in the attempted Times Square car bombing, Shelton resident Ganino has been navigating through news vans and groups of reporters everywhere she goes.
“Getting to work was crazy!” Ganino said Tuesday afternoon, back at home after a day of work at Bullard Havens Technical High School in Bridgeport. “I understand (the media interest.) It’s a big deal.”
Shahzad’s arrest has set off a media frenzy in Connecticut, where the suspect had lived for several years. Shahzad became a U.S. citizen in 2009.
Throughout the day Tuesday, reporters from national and local news outlets poured into Shelton and Bridgeport, looking for photo opportunities and interviews that might give more insight into the man who is accused of an act of terrorism against the United States.
At one point, reporters started interviewing each other.
In Shelton, the media circus disrupted a typically quiet street.
“I used to call this the Boogieman land,” joked neighbor Mary Ann Galich. “It’s all quiet, no one around.”
Not so on Tuesday.
Shelton police Tuesday morning had to ask several people, including reporters, to move their cars, which were double parked on the narrow street.
People stood around on the sidewalks, on a street perched on a hill overlooking the house and in a parking lot for the condominiums set back behind Shahzad’s former home.
Reporters, including representatives of the New York Times, the Connecticut Post and ABC News, dug through piles of papers in the backyard of the home, sifting through soaked documents that appeared to be part of trash piles left behind.
Reporters talked to anyone who appeared in the general area — a woman walking her dog, children bouncing basketballs, police officers stationed outside the home.
A man stopped by his house to pick up mail and a reporter followed him to the mail box and back to his car. The reporter even walked alongside him as he drove down the street, asking him questions about Shahzad and his habits.
“Did you think he was a terrorist?” the reporter asked as the man drove away.
Several neighbors did give interviews.
Heather Tyler, 16, talked to reporters from her spot atop the next door neighbor’s roof.
Her boyfriend, Davon Reid, lives in the home next to Shahzad’s former house. The two watched the scene all day Tuesday.
“It’s just like they left one day and left their stuff,” said Tyler, 16. “They only took their big furniture.”
Tyler said she had been in the home since Shahzad’s family vacated almost a year ago. The home is in the foreclosure process. Shahzad and his wife owe $212,870 to Chase Bank on their mortgage.
“When I first went in there, there was still baby formula in there. Clothes, shoes, books,” Tyler said. “There was ketchup, moldy stuff, in the cabinets.”
Tyler said the upstairs bedroom was infested with bugs.
“You never would really think someone around here would be connected to something like that,” said 14-year-old Marissa Correa, who watched from atop a hill with her friend Mariah Gabriel.
“We’ve been doing this all day,” Correa said “Before school we were down here talking to people. After school we came back.”
Mary Ann Galich gave interviews Tuesday morning and then spent the rest of the afternoon perched on the next-door neighbor’s front steps.
“It’s ridiculous,” Galich said. “I’m very shocked about this. You never knew it would happen here.”
