Police car chase ends with arrest of Worcester man accused of crashing stolen truck four times
Tewksbury police arrested a Worcester man they say stole a truck and crashed it four times after a car chase Sunday afternoon.
Daniel Riedl, 41, pleaded not guilty to four counts of leaving the scene of a car crash with property damage and one count each of larceny of a motor vehicle, negligent operation, operating a motor vehicle with a revoked license, failure to stop for police, speeding and a marked lanes violation during his arraignment in Lowell District Court on Monday, according to court records.
On June 22, Tewksbury police received a report shortly after 1:20 p.m. that a white Ford F-250 had been stolen from the Petroil gas station on Main Street, the police department said in a press release. Officers soon located the truck and attempted to pull it over, but the driver — who was later identified as Riedl — did not stop for police.
A short time later, the truck hit a nearby Honda Civic and fled the scene, police said. Tewksbury police then received reports of a crash involving the truck and a Kia Sorento.
Officers soon located the stolen truck again, but decided to stop chasing it due to Riedl's dangerous driving, police said. They continued tracking it as Riedl drove toward I-495 south, but he crashed into a traffic light and backed into a Tewksbury police cruiser before continuing onto the highway.
Officers then notified Massachusetts State Police of truck's location, and troopers soon pulled it over and arrested Riedl, Tewksbury police said. He was released on personal recognizance bail during his arraignment and is due back in court on July 22, according to court records.
Marion man arrested in connection with 'exposing himself' on Carver beach
Man admitted to Worcester shooting that left another man dead, police say
Former Haitian mayor sentenced to US prison after lying about violent killings
First of two men charged with murder in 2021 Seekonk fatal shooting found guilty
Man charged with assault with intent to murder after Worcester fatal shooting
Read the original article on MassLive.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Haitians face deportation to a country devastated by violence and famine
People living and working in Haiti are questioning the Trump administration's reasoning that it is safe enough for Haitians temporarily living in the U.S. to return to their embattled country of origin. The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it will end Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitian people living in the United States legally. 'How can DHS send 500,000 Haitians back to a country that is the most dangerous country in the world?' Len Gengel, who runs a nonprofit organization in Haiti that helps orphaned children, told NBC News. 'It's crazy. It's a war zone.' DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's announcement was the latest effort by President Donald Trump and his administration to accelerate deportations for Haitian immigrants living in the country. The TPS program was created in 1990 to provide people in disaster-stricken countries to find legal, short-term refuge in the United States. Its abrupt end means deportation for immigrants of 17 other countries, too, including Sudan, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Haitians are expecte to leave by September 2 More than 1,800 people were kidnapped and 8,200 killed in Haiti since gang violence escalated in March of last year; a record 1.3 million people are currently homeless, according to the United Nations. Armed gangs seized control over much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021.. Since Moïse's assasination, the country has been in relentless turmoil, with no discernable government, as it endures extreme violence, hunger and homelessness. According to a recent report from the International Organization for Migration, there has been a 24% increase in displaced people in the last six months, with 11% of Haiti's nearly 12 million residents chased out of their homes by gunmen. In fact, the State Department's 2024 advisory for Haiti remains in effect, warning Americans not to travel to the country due to 'kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and limited health care.' Still, the Trump administration expects Haitians to return to their home country in about two months. 'The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,' a DHS spokesperson said in a statement last week. There was no mention of how conditions have improved. NBC News' request for additional comment went unanswered. In a news conference Monday,North Miami councilwoman Mary Estimé-Irvin called the decision was 'outright unjust.'. She pointed out that the announcement came days after the U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned Americans to vacate the country immediately due to violence and instability. 'Let's be clear, Haiti is in a crisis,' she said. 'Gang-ruled streets once filled with hope. Schools are shattered, hospitals overwhelmed, families displaced. To say Haiti is safe to return defies facts, reason and morality.' As someone coming in and out of Haiti for 15 years, Gengel said conditions have not improved. 'Seeing this country fall apart is so devastating,' he said. 'People are dying of starvation after years of this gang war.' Gengel and his nonprofit, Be Like Brit Foundation, began his work in Haiti assisting orphans to honor the wishes of his daughter, Britney, who died there at age 19 while providing aid during the devastating earthquake of 2010. The troubles on the island have only gotten worse, leading 500,000 Haitians to seek asylum status in the U.S. in the last 15 years. Gengel began working in the country soon after his daughter's death, after closing his business in Massachusetts to fulfill Britney's wish. To keep the children in his orphanage safe, Gengel said he had to learn how to shoot a firearm and has purchased guns to support the hired security at the Port-au-Prince facility. 'I never shot a gun until I was 60 years old,' he said. 'I've had to learn to shoot and get a gun license. It's like we are in prison.' One of the children Gengel helped in Haiti came to the U.S. under President Biden's administration and obtained temporary protected status. He now works as a bookkeeper but 'they won't renew his work permit,' Gengel said. 'He may have to return to Haiti this summer.' Some have compared Trump's cancellation of the TPS program as a 'death sentence.' 'Deporting people back to these conditions is a death sentence for many, stripping them of their fundamental right to safety and dignity,' said Tessa Pettit, a Haitian American who is executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, to The Associated Press. For three years, Frantz Desir, 36, has been an asylee in the U.S. Now he fears he could be next sent back, he told the AP. 'You see your friends who used to go to work every day, and suddenly — without being sick or fired — they just can't go anymore,' he said, referring to the extreme current conditions in Haiti. 'It hits you. Even if it hasn't happened to you yet, you start to worry, 'What if it's me next?'' TPS, designed to protect people from troubled countries who fear for their safety, is not a free pass to America, Abigail Desravines told NBC News this year. She came to the U.S. after the earthquake. 'You have to keep renewing, pay fees and live with the fear that it could end at any time,' Desravines said. 'It's not an easy path.' This article was originally published on
Miami Herald
7 hours ago
- Miami Herald
DHS acknowledges Haiti's humanitarian crisis — in its own notice on why to end TPS
As it turns out, the Trump administration isn't revoking revoking Temporary Protected Status for Haitians because 'it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,' as a spokesperson said Friday. It's quite the opposite: The U.S. wants to send hundreds of thousands of people back to the Caribbean country exactly because the situation there has deteriorated so much. Sound contradictory? Hold on. In President Trump's world, this makes sense — the only way he can justify deporting about half-million people back to a country where Haitians are being slaughtered in the streets and in churches is by treating them as a threat to the U.S. In documents to be published in the Federal Registry Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote that allowing Haitian TPS holders to remain in the country is 'contrary to the national interest.' She highlighted 'widespread gang violence' happening in the country as one of the reasons for rescinding temporary deportation protections, the Herald reported. Gangs control 90% of the capital of Port-au-Prince. Weirdly, Noem quoted Amnesty International in her report, writing that ''Haiti is in the grip of severe humanitarian and human rights crisis. Armed gangs are striking the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and its surroundings with terror and violence, including rape and other forms of sexual violence.'' In fact, the acute situation described above is the reason that the Biden administration expanded the TPS designation for Haitians following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. But Noem argues that the widespread violence and the 'lack of functional government authority' make it hard for the U.S. to properly vet migrants at the border because 'Haiti lacks a functioning central authority capable of maintaining or sharing such critical information.' She added: 'Haitian gang members have already been identified among those who have entered the United States.' Noem has made a similar argument for terminating TPS for 350,000 Venezuelans because she said some of them belong to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. Her contention about vetting migrants coming from a country enveloped in chaos isn't far-fetched. We don't doubt that there are bad actors willing to take advantage of America's immigration system and exploit the chaos in their own country that makes it hard to check their background. The American public has made it clear that people with gang ties and who have committed serious crimes should be deported. You won't find many people defending their right to immigrate here. But the 'bad apple' argument only goes so far to sell immigration policy to the public. What about the TPS holders who are already living in the country, who have been here for years, built lives, found jobs and, more importantly, have committed no crime? The U.S. government has plenty of resources to assess whether they have been a blight to their communities or not. These are people like Nadine Mallebranche, who was only 5 years old when she came from Haiti — in the 1980s. She's had TPS for 15 years, which has allowed her to work legally as a store supervisor, the Herald reported. 'The only home that I know is the United States,' she told Herald reporters. Will Noem tell us that the U.S. has no way to know what people in similar situations have been up to for the past 40 years? With over 300,000 Haitians living in the Miami metro area, what will happen to the employers who rely on TPS workers? We never expected Trump to have humanitarian concerns for migrants escaping violence and political instability — the reason that Congress created the TPS program — much less for Haitians, whom he accused on the campaign trail of eating people's pets in Ohio. But others should, in particular members of South Florida's delegation in Congress, regardless of party affiliation. Miami Republicans have pleaded with Noem to look at Venezuelan TPS holders at risk of deportation on a case-by-case basis. Haitians deserve better than this as well. Blanket policies that treat criminals and people just trying to live a better life the same are inherently unfair and bad for this country. Click here to send the letter.
Miami Herald
12 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Gang violence in Haiti is reason to end TPS, deport Haitians, Trump administration says
The Trump administration is using Haiti's 'widespread' gang violence, along with the State Department's recent decision to designate several of the country's most powerful armed groups as 'foreign terrorists,' to justify ending temporary deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living and working in the United States. On Friday, a Homeland Security spokesperson justified the decision to end Temporary Protected Status by saying 'the environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.' But in Federal Register documents to be published Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem highlights Haiti's 'widespread gang violence,' lawlessness and lack of a functioning government in the agency's argument to end TPS for Haitians — the same reasons for which the Biden Administration granted the deportation protections. In the official determination letter ending TPS, the Trump administration does not assess whether the country is safe enough for Haitian's to return. Instead, DHS cites several reports on the deteriorating conditions in Haiti describing the reality Haitians face, living in an overcrowded capital largely controlled under gang control. TPS is a designation given to countries with conditions so dangerous that their nationals in the U.S. cannot return. The Obama administration granted work permits and deportation protections under TPS for Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake near Port-au-Prince that killed over 300,000 people. The Biden administration then expanded the designation following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 and again amid deteriorating conditions in February 2023 and July 2024. DHS determined that it is not in U.S. interests to maintain the designation because of the 'serious threat' Haitians gangs pose, coupled with the Haitian government's inability to provide reliable information about their nationals. 'Gang violence in Haiti persists as armed groups operate with impunity, enabled by a weak or effectively absent central government,' DHS said, citing a Congressional Research Service report as well as Amnesty International on how gangs are 'striking the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and its surroundings with terror and violence, including rape and other forms of sexual violence.' The Trump administration's rationale is a significant departure from previous U.S. policies regarding Haiti. In the past, U.S. national interests were used to justify both American involvement in Haiti's internal political affairs and in its designation of TPS, as U.S. officials cited mounting fears of Haitians taking to the sea in rickety, unsafe boats to try to reach Florida. The agency notes that on May 2, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the State Department's designation of the gangs Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. 'In his announcement, the secretary noted 'Haitian gangs, including the Viv Ansanm coalition and Gran Grif, are the primary source of instability and violence in Haiti,' DHS said. 'They are a direct threat to U.S. national security interests in our region.... Their ultimate goal is creating a gang-controlled state where illicit trafficking and other criminal activities operate freely and terrorize Haitian citizens.' Putting the blame on Haiti transitional government, DHS said the breakdown in governance that has allowed widespread gang violence in Haiti to be sustained 'directly impacts U.S. national security interests, particularly in the context of uncontrolled migration.' While previous goverment estimates have said that 521,000 Haitians were benefiting from immigration protections, the letter said DHS estimates there are approximately 348,187 nationals of Haiti or people with no nationality who last habitually resided in Haiti and hold TPS under Haiti's designation. Immigration advocates decrying the TPS decision say a wave of migration to Florida remains a high probability as the situation increasingly becomes unbearable for Haitians and as armed gangs continue to spread to other regions. They note that Haitians residing in the U.S. have been a lifeline for those still inside the country, contributing over $3 billion annually in remittances to the country. 'We believe that ending TPS for Haitians is not in the U.S. national interest,' the Miami-based Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy, an advocacy group made up of Americans of Haitian descent, said. 'We urge the administration to reconsider its decision and to continue providing safe haven while increasing its support of Haitian and international efforts to vanquish the criminal gangs that are transforming Haiti into a wasteland.' Immigration experts say the administration's reliance on 'national interests' makes little sense in the context of Haiti, and argue against the notion that granting temporary protections against deportation encourages illegal migration. 'The current situation in Haiti is concerning,' DHS said 'However, the United States must prioritize its national interests, which includes assessing foreign policy, public safety, national security, migration factors, immigration policy, and economic considerations. In considering these factors individually and cumulatively, the Secretary has determined that permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the U.S. national interest.' Miami Herald staff writer Syra Ortiz Blanes contributed to this story.
