ROCKLAND, MASS. (WHDH) - Rockland police have released surveillance video of the armed robbery that led to a police chase, armed standoff, and fatal officer-involved shooting in Quincy on Friday morning.
The suspect, later identified as Eric Leach, 36, can be seen in a black sweatshirt approaching the counter of a 7-Eleven convenience store on Market Street and pointing what appears to be a gun at the two clerks standing there.
Leach is able to get away with over $300 from the register.
A lottery winner who had entered the 7-Eleven to cash a ticket just moments after Leach fled was able to provide police with a description of him.
VIDEO: Here’s the surveillance from the 7-11 in Rockland. The Chief says the suspect robbed the 2 clerks at gunpoint. When he left the guy in the gray shirt, who just won a scratch-off ticket & came to collect his prize, followed the suspect while on the phone w/ PD. #7News pic.twitter.com/pqV2dHGG26
— Justin Dougherty (@DoughertyJC) March 26, 2021
Cellphone video showed Leach frantically running through the Brookside Road neighborhood moments after the robbery.
“He was at my front door, I was looking at him,” Christine Breadmore told 7NEWS. “He was like, ‘I was just jumped by two kids. Can I use your telephone?’ I said no right away.”
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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