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Health & Fitness

I Take One for the Stop & Shop Team

A veteran police Lt . makes a mistake that could have had serious results.

It was August 24, 1995 and I was the patrol commander on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. I had been "working my way through the ranks" and was now a lieutenant with twenty three years on the job. At about 4 a.m. I had decided to go out for lunch and called one of the officers to come inside for desk duty. I thought that since rank has its privileges, let him listen to the cleaning man's noisy vacuum cleaner.

I stopped first at 7-Eleven and then to the Parthenon Diner for my BLT club/no fries. It may sound like a strange meal for that time of day but when you work nights you stomach never knows what's going on anyways.

I parked on East Main Street and had just finished eating when a call came in. A female had been seen shoplifting at Stop & Shop and was trying to flee. Shoplifting  in most cases is just a misdemeanour, as this appeared to be.

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The situation escalated quickly when the suspect drove at the security officers and then struck several parked cars in her attempt to get away. The shoplifting case had now gone to felony robbery because of the violence involved. I called in that I was behind the Ford Bronco as it exited the store parking lot at a high rate of speed. The truck then made a quick right onto southbound entrance ramp exit 56 of I95. While following the truck, I did call in the marker number to dispatch. 

I had activated my lights and siren and was behind the truck when it stopped suddenly halfway down the exit 56 ramp. Then I made a dumb mistake I didn't call in that the suspect vehicle had stopped on the ramp, nobody knew I had stopped the suspect vehicle.

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As I approached the driver's side door, I could see the driver appeared nervous and there was a young female in the passengers seat. I asked the driver to shut off the vehicle, she said no. I asked for her license and registration and she again refused. When I asked her to get out of the truck she gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. I was able to get one of her hands free and used a pain compliance hold on her. I bent her arm back around the door post at the elbow and she didn't even make a sound. If you've ever tried this, it hurts a lot. I let go as I was afraid I'd snap her arm. I then went to the next level of force: pepper spray. I fired off a short burst towards her face and she just kind of blinked. And that was the last thing I remember.

The next thing I knew I was coming to, lying face down by the side of the road. My first instinct was to crawl off the road so I wouldn't get squashed by a truck coming from the truck stop. As I took an inventory of my self I knew my right ankle was broken. My high lace up shoe had been torn from my foot somehow. I was scraped from head to toe; my glasses were smashed and so was the face of my watch. I could see the driver had left as I looked down the ramp. I found my radio and called in for help as people began to stop to see if they could assist. The back up cars came from exit 55, the wrong way up the shoulder to get to me sooner. I was taken to the hospital by Branford ambulance and was released later that day. I was out of work until January and had a knee to ankle cast on for about three months. The investigating officer told me I had been dragged by the car down the ramp. I was never sure of that theory; I have my own idea about it.

I don't remember how I got hurt. Seeing what happened with my shoe and what happened to my ankle and my toe, I can only assumed the driver ran over my foot as I was falling ripping my shoe off and breaking my ankle.

Others asked me why I didn't use my firearm at that point in the incident? It just hadn't progressed to that level, I guess. There was also a fifteen-year-old in the truck as the passenger. The driver went a short ways, washed her face in a puddle, and drove home. She lived a few towns away and when she got home, she called 911 because of the effects of the spray. She was later apprehended at her home.

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