courant.com | `Battle Dance' Turns Deadly

KIDS, WHEN THEY SERVE YOU, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SERVE IT BACK. BECAUSE, THEN, IT'S ON: Via the Hartford Courant, a dance battle turned deadly in New Britain:

The sun had just set on a warm spring day, and Robert Stitt was hanging out with some old friends in an empty parking lot on North Street. James Brown was on the boom box, and Stitt had a few drinks in his belly when someone challenged him to see who could pull off the most difficult dance maneuvers.

"He was a pretty good dancer. Back in the day he used to do flips," said John Boxley, a friend of Stitt's who was among the crowd who watched the "battle dance" unfold Monday night. "It was a bunch of older guys dancing who thought they were still young."

When someone in the crowd pulled off a body flip, Stitt took off his shirt and decided to try it himself, Boxley said. He said the crowd of about 20 friends began chanting his name, egging him on.

"That amped him up a little bit," Boxley said.

But Stitt was no longer the young athletic man who graduated from New Britain High School 30 years ago. . . .

Getting served: it's dangerous even when Leopold "Butters" Stotch isn't around.