Ansonia police are trying to figure out what happened to a man who was found lying on the ground Wednesday night on Westfield Avenue.
Police think he was assaulted. His family thinks he may have been a victim of a hit and run.
Details of the incident are not clear because the victim sustained a head injury and has no memory of what happened.
What is clear — Gary Menna Sr., an Ansonia father of five, was in Bridgeport Hospital Thursday with a concussion.
Menna, who was recently laid off from a job in the construction industry, was making a Domino’s pizza delivery to a house in the area of 237 Westfield Ave. at about 9:30 p.m. when he was injured.
“He has a pretty severe concussion, but he was lucky,” Menna’s daughter, Elyse Boffen, said Thursday. “He has no broken bones, just cuts and bruises.”
His family, based on conversations with friends on the block, think he may have been struck by a hit-and-run driver.
They said a truck — though it’s unclear whether it was a SUV a pickup truck, or something larger — may have been seen on Westfield Avenue about 9:30 p.m.
Boffen said her father can’t remember anything past Sunday.
“The person he delivered (pizza) to heard a loud noise. He said it sounded like a pop. He went outside and saw him laying on the ground,” Boffen said.
Anyone with information should call police at 203 – 735-1885.
Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota said police are investigating.
Menna is the key to the investigation, so Cota said police plan to talk to him again once his memory returns.
Police said Menna may have been physically assaulted. The initial call to police came in as a fight, Cota said.
“We believe, at least according to some witnesses in the area, there was some sort of dispute, apparently with him parking or blocking the roadway,” Cota said. “There may have been two other men there and that they fled in a vehicle. We don’t think he was run over by a car. That’s the best we have as of right now.”
At the same time, Cota said police are not dismissing what Menna’s family heard.
“We’re not going to rule it out. We’re not going to say it didn’t happen that way,” Cota said. “But the supervisors on scene said it appeared that he had been assaulted, but the officers are still working on it.”
In addition to a second round of questioning with Menna, police were planning to return to Westfield Avenue Thursday evening to talk to more neighbors in order to piece together what happened.
