Walpole Officer Dragged At Start Of High-Speed Chase 'Doing All Right'
WALPOLE (CBS) – A Walpole police officer who was dragged at the start of a high-speed chase through several towns said he is a little sore, but otherwise uninjured.
Officer Matt Crown attempted to speak with Michael LeBlanc on Wednesday after receiving a report of a suspicious person parked on a man-made dam behind Walpole Country Club.
Related: Driver Charged In Wild High-Speed Chase 'Not Made For Jail'
Crown said LeBlanc gave answers that didn't make sense, then sped off with the officer's hands closed in the car's window. Crown was dragged about 300 feet.
"He was driving away, and I was attached to the vehicle," Crown told WBZ-TV.
Crown added that while LeBlanc was driving away with the officer clinging to the car, the two made eye contact.
"It was very odd," Crown said. "I was yelling at him to stop and he very calmly looked to his left, we made eye contact, and he said 'Sorry' and shrugged his shoulders in a very sarcastic manner and continued to drive."
The Walpole officer was able to pull his hands free and push away from the car to avoid the tires.
A day later, Crown says he is "a little sore, a little stiff, but doing all right other than that."
After leaving Crown behind, LeBlanc went on a wild high-speed chase through several towns and Route 128 before he was arrested in West Roxbury.
When LeBlanc was being booked he allegedly asked officers "what he has to do to get shot by the police."
On Thursday LeBlanc was arraigned on charges related to the chase. He was ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing next week.
"I really am just happy that no one else was hurt, that we got him into custody," Crown said. "Obviously it was a pretty good scare, but I think it ended about as well as it could have ended."
Crown praised all of the departments involved in the chase for safely taking LeBlanc into custody.
"Everyone did an unbelievable job," he told WBZ-TV. "It could have gone a very different way, but luckily it went as well as it did."
