BOSTON – A Massachusetts State Police trooper was suspended with pay Friday after video captured him and other officers beating up an apparently surrendering suspect following a wild car chase into New Hampshire.
The suspension will be in effect until an investigation into Wednesday’s chase is complete, police spokesman David Procopio said. He declined to elaborate on the decision or say how long the investigation might take.
The department also hasn’t named the officer, who they say is 32, has been on the police force since 2011 and was assigned to its Andover Barracks. The police officers’ union declined to comment.
The trooper was relieved of duty Thursday. The closed-door hearing Friday at state police headquarters in Framingham was meant to determine whether he would be suspended or placed on another work status as the investigation continued.
A New Hampshire state trooper, whose name also wasn’t released, has been suspended and that state’s attorney general is investigating.
Fifty-year-old Worcester resident Richard Simone Jr., who was wanted on multiple warrants, refused to stop Wednesday for police in Holden, Massachusetts, authorities say. He led police on an hourlong chase that reached speeds of up to 100 mph before ending in Nashua, New Hampshire, after officers laid out spike strips.
Simone appeared to have been surrendering when officers started pummeling him with punches, news helicopter video shows. The video shows Simone stepping out of his pickup truck, kneeling and placing his hands on the ground before he was beaten.
Governors from the two states have expressed concern, and Simone’s family has questioned the police officers’ conduct.
“He’s been in trouble in the past, but he’s not a violent person,” Jesse Biziewski, Simone’s cousin, told NECN. “Whatever he did to lead up to this chase, he definitely deserves a punishment, but that type of punishment he does not deserve.”
It wasn’t immediately clear Friday if Simone has a lawyer.
Simone, who remained in New Hampshire police custody Friday, has agreed to be taken back to Massachusetts to face outstanding warrants that include assault with a deadly weapon and larceny.
The Wednesday chase wasn’t the first time Simone has eluded police trying to arrest him for the outstanding warrants. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports he almost rammed a police cruiser in a separate chase three days earlier in Millbury, Massachusetts, before driving onto Interstate 290.
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