NEWARK, NEW JERSEY OFFICER IS DRAGGED BY CAR IN A TRAFFIC STOP
A Newark police officer was in critical condition after he was dragged by a car he pulled over yesterday, the police said. Just before 3 a.m., the officer, Cesar Estrella, 34, and his partner stopped a maroon Ford Taurus at the corner of Summer and Montclair Avenues, a police spokesman said.
Suddenly, the driver of the Taurus hit the gas, the spokesman said. Officer Estrella was knocked off his feet and dragged under the car for about one block. He suffered severe head trauma and multiple cuts to his face, the police said, but he was expected to survive.
Other police cars chased the car, which crashed about two miles away at Victoria Avenue and Stone Street. The driver began running, but officers caught him about a block and a half away, at 72 Crane Street, the police said.
The suspect, Alisdair Archer Jr., 20, of Green Brook, N.J., was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and possession of a weapon, with the weapon being the car.
The police did not say why the Taurus had been pulled over. Officer Estrella, who joined the Newark Police Department in July 1996, was taken to University Hospital, where he remained yesterday, the police said.
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