Missouri Officer Dragged by Motorcyclist

A Joplin, MO, police officer was injured early Saturday morning when he was dragged by a motorcyclist he was trying to apprehend.

A Joplin, MO, police officer was injured early Saturday morning when he was dragged by a motorcyclist he was trying to apprehend, reports the Joplin Globe.

The operator of the motorcycle, Paul G. Haney, 19, of Joplin, was arrested the following day in Newton County and charged with felony assault on a law enforcement officer.

Capt. Bob Higginbotham of the Joplin (MO) Police Department said in a news release Monday that about 1 a.m. Saturday police Sgt. Rusty Rives observed two motorcycles traveling at 124 miles per hour. Rives observed the motorcyclists again a short time later and one of them, believed to have been Haney, drove into the oncoming lanes directly at a southbound patrol car before going around the car and continuing northbound.

Rives subsequently waited on foot for the motorcyclists at 15th and Main Streets. When they stopped at the light there, he approached Haney on foot and attempted to take him into custody. But when Rives grabbed Haney's hooded sweatshirt, he became entangled in the garment as the suspect took off at a high rate of speed, dragging him a short distance with the bike and dislocating the officer's shoulder.

Rives drove himself to the hospital where he was treated and released.

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