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State police shoot man soaked in gasoline, armed with knife, lighter
By Associated Press, 5/2/2002 06:34
CHARLTON, Mass. (AP) A state trooper shot and killed a Southbridge man soaked in gasoline and armed with a butane lighter and a knife after a low-speed car chase ended in Charlton, authorities said.
Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte identified the victim as Michael C. Tweet, 42, of Southbridge. He was pronounced dead at Harrington Memorial Hospital in Southbridge.
A press release issued Wednesday night by state police Lt. Timothy G. Hackett, commander of the Sturbridge barracks, said the incident began about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday when Southbridge police broadcast that an individual had left the George B. Wells crisis center in that town, had doused himself with gasoline and was threatening to commit suicide.
About ten minutes later, state police located and began following the man until he stopped his car on Power Station Road in Charlton.
Tweet again doused himself with gasoline, got out of the car holding a lighter and a large knife.
''An altercation with officers then took place, at which time the subject was shot,'' the state police press release said. The release did not identify the office who shot Tweet after a short footchase up Brookfield Road.
State police referred any questions to Conte's office.
Dr. Betty Kuffel, a Montana woman who was in Charlton working on a book on accused murderer Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a former Dudley and Webster resident accused of killing a Great Falls boy, was in the parking lot of Drake's Sad End Cafe at the time of the shooting.
''I stepped behind a building because I didn't want to be in the line of fire and I heard 'pop, pop' two shots, very closely spaced,'' she said.
Tom Kuffel, her husband, who believes he was the only witness to the shooting, said the officer told the man twice to drop his knife.
''I heard two distinct bang-bangs,'' he said.
Tom Kuffel said a kitchen knife, about 6 inches long with a black plastic handle, was recovered at the scene. |
