State Trooper Dragged by Car, Driver Located and Arrested
At 11:10 p.m. yesterday, Trooper Amy Waterman, a three-year State Police veteran assigned to the Springfield Barracks, was commuting home on Page Boulevard when she observed a 1994 Volvo S40 displaying a license plate registered to a different vehicle. After activating her emergency lights and stopping the vehicle, she walked up to the Volvo and requested that the driver produce his license and car registration. The driver was unable to produce either document, and the trooper then asked him to step out of the vehicle, which also contained a passenger.
Trooper Waterman then opened the door and reached in to guide the driver out of the car. As she did so, the driver quickly accelerated down the road. Trooper Waterman, who was grasping the door and part of the car frame, did not let go for fear that she would fall to the ground and be run over. She repeatedly ordered the driver to stop car; he ignored her orders. The car dragged Trooper Waterman along the road for short distance before she fell to the ground.
Trooper Waterman suffered minor injuries, but was able to broadcast a description of the car and its direction of travel. She got back into her cruiser, began a search for the Volvo and located it a short distance away, unoccupied, in a driveway on Fordham Street. Trooper Waterman was joined by other troopers from the Springfield Barracks who established a perimeter and began a search for the suspects. A short time later, Trooper Justin Grigg located the passenger, TIMOTHY KUBETIN, 29 (D.O.B. 1/30/79), of Chicopee, kneeling behind a storage shed in a Fordham Street backyard. KUBETIN was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace.
Following a subsequent investigation, State Police identified the driver as JONES and obtained a warrant for his arrest from the Springfield District Court. At 11:56 a.m. today, state troopers from the Springfield barracks, along with members of the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section and Springfield Police Department went to the Grover Street home where an acquaintance of the suspect lives and found JONES in a back room. He was arrested without incident. He faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, failing to stop for police, attaching plates and other motor vehicle offenses.
No further information is available at this time. Please do not call the barracks directly.