The suspect in a wild crime spree that began with an armed robbery in Rockland and ended with a tense standoff in Quincy has had previous run-ins with the law, police said.
Authorities announced Eric Leach was the man shot and killed by police Friday morning. The 36-year-old has a criminal history in Massachusetts and served time in jail for the 2012 shooting that injured an 8-year-old girl in Brockton.
At the time, prosecutors said Leach was at the girl’s home when he tried to get something out of his pocket and the gun went off. The bullet hit the young girl in the leg.
Leach allegedly begged people not to call 911 and ran off before eventually being arrested.
He spent several years behind bars for his involvement in that incident.
On Friday, nearly 10 years later, cellphone video showed Leach frantically running through the Brookside Road neighborhood moments after he robbed a 7 Eleven on Market Street in Rockland.
Officers responding to reports of a suspicious man running around the neighborhood were able to track him down.
The officers ordered him to the ground at gunpoint, but Leach said, “shoot me, shoot me,” and refused to comply with the order, according to Rockland Police Chief John Llewellyn. An officer then deployed a taser but it proved ineffective because Leach was wearing a heavy sweatshirt.
Leach was then able to escape on foot and stole the Rockland police cruiser before leading officers on a chase into Quincy, hitting several cruisers in the process, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said.
An Abington police officer lost control of his cruiser during the chase and crashed into a utility pole.
Leach later tried to get out of the cruiser with a patrol rifle in his hand near the BJ’s gas station on Burgin Parkway in Quincy and was fatally shot by police, according to Morrissey.
Investigators in Rockland are continuing to search for a handgun that Leach was believed to have been in possession of during the robbery.
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