Waterford Man Arrested for Driving Into Firefighter

By Julie Wernau
TheDay.com published on 12/8/2006

Waterford - A local man was charged today with assault on a public safety officer after fire officials said he struck a firefighter with his SUV.

William Morell, 47, of 9 Wilson Ave., also was charged with evading responsibility and breach of peace.

The incident happened this morning while firefighters were putting out a car fire on Wilson Avenue, a small dead-end street in Quaker Hill near the Thames River.

Morell's route was being blocked by fire truck so he drove over the fire hose in an attempt to maneuver out of the narrow street, firefighters said.

“He wanted out,” Quaker Hill fire chief Matthew Carson said.

Carson said when firefighters told Morell to stop, he backed up and nearly hit one firefighter.

“He tried to back over Monte, which is my deputy chief,” Carson said.

Deputy Chief Monte Fielder said when firefighter Jason Dickey saw the man backing up toward Fielder, he began banging on the hood of his Mercedes SUV to try to get him to stop. Morell then put the vehicle in forward, knocked Fielder down and took off through the back of a driveway and into the field behind a house, looping around Wilson Avenue houses in an attempt to come out on another part of the street, fire officials said.
His path was blocked by a Cohanzie ambulance.

“I told the police officer, ‘he just ran over one of my guys. I want him arrested now,” Fielder said.

At the time, there was only one Waterford police officer on the scene and the driver apparently resisted arrest, leading three firefighters to jump on the man to aid the officer in making the arrest, fire officials said.

By then, Cohanzie and Quaker Hill firefighters had used foam to put out a fire that destroyed the front end of a silver car parked in a private driveway.

Dickey is being picked up from the hospital this afternoon after being treated for minor injuries.