Attorney Chris Spring’s Client Found Not Guilty of Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon

A Lowell District Court jury took only 15 minutes today to find a Tewksbury man not guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and failure to stop for a police officer.  The case was tried by Attorney Christopher Spring.

There has been an ongoing dispute between our client’s family members and their next door neighbors for years.  The dispute has resulted in the police responding to their neighborhood multiple times to investigate reports of disturbances between the two families.  The charges in this case resulted from another fight between our client’s father and the next door neighbor.  According to the neighbor, our client’s father was throwing rocks at her property and otherwise attempting to disturb her peace.  Several Tewksbury police officers responded to the scene.  The went first to our client’s house and knocked on the door.  They saw somebody inside, who was later identified as our client, and asked him to come outside.  Our client refused to do so and ordered the police to get off his property.  The officers walked next door and began to speak to the neighbor.

Our client decided to go to his girlfriend’s house.  He started his truck, which was in his driveway, with a remote controlled starter and began walking outside.  He got into his truck and started pulling from his driveway into the street.  According to the police, one of the officers was standing at the end of the driveway with his hands in the air, ordering our client to stop the truck.  Instead, our client gunned his engine and the officer tried to jump out of the way, but he was struck with the side view mirror.  Our client didn’t stop the truck until it had pulled completely into the street.  Our client told us he didn’t see the police officer until the last minute, he stopped his truck immediately, and he did not hit the officer.

We were able to obtain a surveillance video of the incident that was taken from the next door neighbor’s house, which was ironically installed to catch our client’s family members committing crimes.  The video corroborated our client’s story.  It showed our client pulling out of his driveway while the officers were still in his neighbor’s yard.  When the officers realized our client was driving away, they began running toward our client’s truck.  One of the officers ran right into the passenger’s side of the truck and our client slammed on the brakes.  Our client was then forcibly removed from the truck and arrested.

During the trial, the police officers stuck to their story until Attorney Spring confronted them with the surveillance video.  They were then forced to admit they were running toward the truck when it was pulling out of the driveway.  There was no officer standing at the top of the driveway and our client stopped immediately upon realizing the officers were signaling for him to stop.  Attorney Spring argued to the jury that the police were lying and the jury should not believe their testimony.  The jurors agreed and returned a very quick verdict of not guilty for both counts.