NORTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Members of the Massachusetts State Police and Norton and Ranyham police nabbed a fugitive wanted on weapons charges who tried fleeing from police Friday, officials said.
Officers investigating a Manchester, N.H. shooting from September 2017 as well as an incident of someone waving a firearm in Taunton June 2 convened on a Norton hotel Friday, according to a press release issued Friday by Massachusetts State Police.
Police received information that Thomas Holland, 31, of Taunton was at a hotel in Norton, and at about 4:45 p.m. they observed him and a woman in the hotel’s parking lot, but as officers tried to stop the vehicle, the suspect and woman fled, according to police.
Police then attempted to stop the vehicle on Bay Street in Taunton, but it fled again, this time striking an unmarked Norton police cruiser.
The suspect vehicle, which was driven by the woman, then veered at another cruiser before entering the ramp to Route 495 southbound, police said. It began traveling in all lanes at high rates of speed. The vehicle exited at Route 138 and then entered onto 495 again, according to police.
Police said that before the exit to Route 24, Holland jumped out of the car and ran north on Route 495, attempting to get into vehicles that were stopped in traffic. Officers then surrounded Holland and placed him under arrest.
He faces charges in connection with the Manchester, N.H. shooting and for waving a firearm at people on Taunton Green and then kicking in an apartment door to evade arrest. He also faces charges in connection with a large amount of crack cocaine that Danvers police recovered in a motel Holland fled on Aug. 1 as well as new charges of resisting arrest and attempted carjacking.
The woman driving the vehicle Friday, Brittany Pasternak of Somerset, also was arrested for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and malicious destruction of property.
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