This bust’s for you!
A 33-year-old Connecticut woman was busted today on charges of receiving stolen beer from a truck driver who slaughtered eight co-workers after being confronted with a videotape of him selling the boosted brew to her, cops said.
And sources told The Post that cops are now looking for a male friend of the woman, who himself had formerly worked at the Hartford Distributors beer distribution warehouse in Manchester where driver Omar Thornton stole the suds.
The woman, Christy Quail of Enfield, Conn., was arrested at her home on two counts of sixth-degree larceny, said East Windstor Police Chief Edward DeMarco.
DeMarco said the arrest was “in connection with beer and property owned by the Hartford Distributors Inc.”
And the chief said Quail is seen on a private eye’s surveillance videotape receiving beer from Thornton. Quail accepted the pilfered pilsener from the 34-year-old driver on two different occasions in July, DeMarco said.
Quail’s sister, who did not give her name when she talked to The Post at Quail’s home, called the arrest a big mistake by police.
She said Quail called her when police arrived to ask if the sister could watch Quail’s daughter.
The sister said the surveillance videotape shows a green Honda Civic, which Quail does drive, but added that Quail does not know Thornton.
The sister also said Quail is five months’ pregnant, adding that she is worried about Quail because the pregnancy has been a risky one.
Thornton was confronted by Hartford Distributors’ executive on Tuesday morning with the video, and offered the choice of either resigning or being fired.
He chose to quit, but minutes later pulled out two 9mm semi-automatic handguns and began gunning down his co-workers.
Thornton fatally shot eight men, and wounded two others before calling police on his cell-phone and offering an explanation for the bloody rampage.
“You probably want to know the reason why I shot this place up,” Thornton told a State Police dispatcher. “This place here is a racist place. They treat me bad over here. They treat all the other black employees bad over here too.”
“So I just took it into my own hands, and, uh, handled the problem.”
“I wish I could have got more of the people.”
Thornton hung up soon after, and blew out his own brains. The company and his own union have said they never received any complaints from Thornton that he had been subjected to racial taunts or graffiti, as he had claimed to his family.
Chief DeMarco said the probe of the stolen beer is “an ongoing investigation.”
Asked if a male friend of Quail is being sought by police, as sources have said, DeMarco said, “I can’t answer that at this time.”
Thornton’s girlfriend, Kristi Hannah, said Quail had a male friend who lost his job at Hartford Distributors after developing an eye condition that left him unable to drive. Hannah also said Quail would drive the man around because he had lost his license.
“I heard he had lost his job, he was getting Social Security and he wasnt getting paid that much,” Hannah said of that friend of Quai’s. “He was having a hard time with money.”
Hannah said that Thornton was close friends with the other man, and would often talk to him on the phone, and go to the gym with him. Thornton once told her that Quail’s friend once stole a barbell from the gym, Hannah said.
“I told Omar not to hang out with that f—- a—–hole,” she said.
