New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
While most of us were sleeping, Massachusetts State Police K9 Unit Trooper Greg Valentine and his partner, Kyber (pictured), with the assistance of road Troopers from the Springfield and Northampton Barracks, were working a busy overnight shift.
At 12:55 a.m., Trooper Valentine attempted to stop a blue Dodge Dakota pickup as it exited Route 391 north onto Main Street in Holyoke. The Trooper had determined that the license plates attached to the truck were not those that were registered to the vehicle. The Dakota operator did not stop, and headed onto Cabot Street and south over the Willimansett Bridge.
Massachusetts State Police photo.
Trooper Valentine turned off his emergency lights and did not pursue the suspect vehicle, but followed in the same direction. He crossed the bridge into Chicopee, as did Trooper Joshua Wingler from the State Police-Northampton Barracks. The Troopers located the pickup truck, which had crashed at the intersection of Prospect and Erline streets. The operator was not with the truck.
A short time later, a witness reported seeing a man, who was bleeding from his head, previously sitting on a porch at a home on Erline Street. Troopers began searching for that man, believed to be the suspect who was driving the pickup. At about 1:30 a.m., Trooper Patrick Harper from the State Police-Springfield Barracks located the man on Meadow Street and took him into custody.
The man, a 33-year-old Chicopee resident, was charged with a license plate violation and other motor vehicle offenses, as well as two outstanding warrants for prior motor vehicle violations.
While completing their response to that incident, at 2:20 a.m. Trooper Valentine received a radio transmission about another crash, also with no driver present at the scene, on Route 391 southbound in the area of Exit 4. Trooper Valentine arrived on scene where the Ford Focus was found to have crashed and deployed Kyber on a track.
Kyber located a scene and acquired a track heading east, over the Route 391 overpass on the north side of the highway. Accompanied by Trooper Benjamin Siok from State Police-Springfield, Trooper Valentine and Kyber crossed the on-ramp to 391 from Grattan Street, where Kyber pulled over the guardrail and into a small wooded area.
Kyber continued to pull eastbound, back out and across Grattan Street, behind several houses, and into a backyard on Olea St., and then out to Mary Street.
Kyber approached the driveway of a home on Mary Street and showed a proximity alert. Trooper Valentine issued commands that anyone hiding in the area should surrender or the K9 would be deployed, and the suspect came out from behind a bush in the yard.
The suspect, a 30-year-old man who lives on that street, was taken into custody and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, speeding, and leaving the scene of a crash that caused property damage.
