MONTGOMERY – An apparent parole jumper was taken into custody recently after he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend – and the state troopers who responded to her call for help.
Trooper Alexander Berry reports he was dispatched to a residence on Old House Road in Montgomery late in the evening of March 11 after a dispatcher had received an open-line 911 call.
The dispatcher had reported that an adult male, an adult female and a boy could be heard screaming in the background but nobody spoke with the dispatcher before the trooper was sent to the source of the call.
Berry reports that before he arrived he learned from his desk officer that the dispatcher eventually spoke with a female party who denied there were issues at the house but Berry continued to investigate the call. He reports that when he arrived he could hear a child crying and a man yelling.
The trooper gained the attention of the woman inside and she invited him into her home.
The woman told Berry that her boyfriend had been there earlier but “she could no longer find him” saying the man had either fled or was hiding inside.
Despite her words, Berry reports, “She indicated to me that she believed his was hiding in a loft” and explicitly told him that her boyfriend had beaten her up before Berry arrived.
She also told the trooper that her boyfriend, later identified as Daniel A. Davidson, 38, of no known address, had been released from incarceration in New York four days earlier and was on parole.
She said that Davidson knew that the current incident was a violation of his parole and he would be sent back to prison, Berry reports.
Berry reports that, because he had heard a man yelling inside the house when he arrived, he advised the woman to take her 12-year-old son outside and, after another trooper arrived, he ascended narrow spiral staircase to the loft where he found Davidson hiding between two mattresses in the dark and cluttered loft.
Berry reports he deployed his firearm but the man did not obey his commands and “just stared at me.” Berry and the other officer who had arrived, Sgt. Paul Coakley, then attempted to take control of Davidson who struggled with the troopers before they were able to place him in handcuffs.
Even handcuffed though, the man “wrapped his legs around the railing” and resisted efforts to move him, all the while belligerently using offensive and inflammatory terms to insult the troopers.
Once Davidson was downstairs, Berry talked with the female resident and her son and learned that she had begun dating the man two months before he was incarcerated and had picked him up when he was released from prison in upstate New York.
She said that they both had been drinking while they discussed their future plans until he lost her temper and began to throw her around.
The woman said that Davidson had not struck her but had pushed her and slammed her into the walls and furnishings “for approximately twenty minutes, during which time she was begging Davidson to stop.”
She showed the trooper a large bruise on her shoulder blade she said was result of Davidson grabbing her and also showed him red marks on her arms caused by him.
Berry reports that when Coakley started to enter the back seat of the cruiser to put a seat belt on Davidson the man attempted to kick him and, when the trooper stepped out of reach, Davidson attempted to get out of the cruiser through the open door.
The man continued to struggle with the troopers trying to get him back into the car, Berry reports, until he applied a burst of chemical irritant spray.
Enroute to the barracks, Berry reports, Davidson’s “demeanor changed back and forth between crying and begging that he not be sent back to jail, and being belligerent and threatening” and, at the barracks he spat on troopers.
He was charged with assault and battery, assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest and a report of the incident was filed with the Department of Children and Families.
Davidson was arraigned the next day in Westfield District Court where Judge Philip A. Contant wrote that “the defendant apparently left New York without the permission of parole (officials)” and noted his extensive record in New York when he set bail at $10,000.
