A Walpole Police officer is speaking out after a wild car chase on Wednesday.
Officer Matthew Crown was dragged by a suspect’s car and is now on the road to recovery.
"I realized very quickly I needed to get myself off of that vehicle," he said.
Crown’s left hand was stuck in the driver’s side window of Michael Leblanc’s car before the 26-mile chase after he and another officer went to check on a suspicious car that was parked oddly in a restricted area in Walpole. It was when he tried to get the suspect’s license and registration that the suspect took off.
"At that point I’m trying to run with the vehicle and he is driving away and has obviously no intention of stopping," Crown said. "I reached in the vehicle to get control of him so he wouldn’t be able to drive away but he was able to put the car in drive and start rolling up the window at that point. At some point it reaches the point where I can’t keep my feet under me and I sort of pull myself up on the car to keep my feet from dragging under the tires and at that point I was trying to break the window."
The 30-year-old former Army Ranger Captain then realized he had to free himself.
"I took a pretty good tumble off of the car, Luckily I was able to push myself away from it enough to not be involved in any of the tires."
Crown and his fellow officers got back in their cruisers and followed Leblanc, chasing Leblanc through several towns until he was captured.
"Getting home from the hospital and kind of relaxing and just kind of taking a breath and realizing exactly what happened," he said.
Crown said he is still trying to process what happened.
Crown said he hopes to be back at work as soon as he is cleared by his doctors.
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