Boston Officers Pull Gun From Man at Traffic Stop

Jan. 25, 2013
They wrestled the gun from the career criminal during a struggle in Dorchester Thursday.

A pair of Boston cops -- classmates in the police academy and partners on the gang unit -- wrestled a loaded Glock from a career criminal during a tense tussle at a traffic stop in Dorchester yesterday.

Police said Ronjae Williams -- a convicted coke dealer and cop beater -- reached for his .40 caliber pistol at least half a dozen times while wrestling with officers Skye Robinson, 32, and Amy Erlandson, 31, who'd pulled him over at about 10:30 a.m. for speeding down a side street and blowing a stop sign at Columbia Road and Blue Hill Avenue.

Neither officer said they grasped the danger until after Williams was hauled away.

"You usually don't process the whole thing until it's over and the weapon's secured," Robinson said.

"You're more concerned with making the situation safe," Erlandson said, finishing her partner's thought.

Police said Williams, 32, was driving somebody else's rental car, had a police scanner in the back seat and was squirming suspiciously when cops pulled him over.

After calling for backup, the officers said Williams refused to get out of the car and told them, "You're violating my civil rights" -- before they yanked him from the black Altima.

While patting him for weapons, they wrote, Williams "immediately bladed his left side away from officers, tensed his body and pulled his elbows tight to his body while moving both of his hands toward his waist," all motions that made them suspect he was armed and reaching for his weapon.

They grabbed for his arms, and he "attempted to break free of Officer's grasp and was pushed toward the rear of the vehicle," the report said.

"A violent struggle ensued," police wrote, including a wrestling bout on the ground and Williams "laying on his stomach and kicking officers who were trying to control his left hand," the report said.

Police booked Williams on a slew of charges, including carrying a gun without a license and resisting arrest. He is also charged as an armed career criminal, with prior convictions of cocaine trafficking in 2004 and assault and battery on a police officer in 1999.

"Any time there's an illegal firearm out on the street, people's lives could be in danger," Erlandson, a seven-year BPD veteran who has been on the gang unit for a year and a half, told the Herald. "That's something we can't forget, and people on the street can't forget."

"I'm very satisfied ... just knowing that there's one firearm that someone's not going to get hurt from," said Robinson, also a seven-year-veteran, with two years on the gang squad.

Erlandson and Robinson said they rank the arrest high on the range of busts they've made in their time on the gang unit.

"It was a high level of danger," Erlandson said. "Any time there's a firearm involved, there's a risk of danger to officers and anyone else around."

Copyright 2013 - Boston Herald

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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