It’s not every day that a state trooper’s backup is a good Samaritan in a cowboy hat — but when it happens, it certainly is worth recalling.
Readers may remember that back in February 2017, just a day after Valentine’s, a scuffle broke out on the Southern State Parkway near Exit 19s – Peninsula Boulevard in Long Island, New York, between a state trooper and a very uncooperative driver.
The altercation began when State Trooper Jean Dhaiti approached a silver Honda Accord as part of a traffic stop for suspected cellphone use, Long Island Weekly reported.
After Dhaiti determined that the driver’s license was suspended and the vehicle lacked proper registration, he told the driver he would have the vehicle impounded, Long Island Weekly reported.
However, the driver refused to give up the keys. When Dhaiti reached into the vehicle to grab them, the driver tried to speed off.
Dhaiti was trapped. With his top half inside the vehicle and his bottom half outside, the trooper held on for dear life.
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The driver, later identified as then-29-year-old Kyheem Kelly from Queens, didn’t get very far, tearing across multiple lanes of traffic and crashing into the freeway median.
At that point, a witness had pulled out a phone and started recording the scenario, and later told WABC-TV that the whole scene seemed more like fiction than fact.
“He floored this car, you know the, the cruiser was right behind the suspect’s car, and he literally just floored it with the cop hanging out, like you literally … seen the cop’s legs outside of the vehicle,” the witness said.
Shortly after the Honda came to a rest against the median, the footage shows a woman getting out of the car and the suspect backing out of the passenger side of the vehicle while the bloodied trooper clutched him.
Eventually, the pair made it to the median, where Dhaiti pushed his assailant over the jersey barrier and tried to pin him.
At that point, two men — one wearing a cowboy hat like a hero in a modern western — ran over to the trooper and held Kelly in place.
“A couple good Samaritans actually just hopped out of their vehicle as the, when the officer got the guy, the suspect, out of the car, and he had him kind of tried to get him restrained, two Good Samaritans came out and they like held the guy down,” the witness told WABC.
“It was like a movie, you know what I mean? It was just like, it happened right in front of your face and you don’t even believe it’s happening.”
Dhaiti went to a hospital to receive treatment for his injuries, but ultimately they kept him from returning to his job in law enforcement, according to the LI Herald. Dhaiti had spent 19 years in law enforcement and is also a veteran of the U.S. Army.
The WABC report is below:
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Kelly was charged with aggravated assault upon a police officer, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, according to WABC-TV.
In April 2019, Kelly pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault, according to the Long Island Herald. He was sentenced in August 2019 to four years in prison.
The most senseless part of the whole ordeal was not Dhaiti dangling out a window or even a cowboy running to his aid, but the fact that Dhaiti wasn’t originally planning to arrest Kelly and Kelly had no prior arrests.
“If you get pulled over, just accept what it is,” Dhaiti advised. according to an Aug. 6 2019 Newsday report. “I had no intentions of even arresting this guy. I was just going to impound his car and then things just got out of hand.
For some reason, Kelly just freaked out, overreacting and seriously injuring the state trooper and losing his own freedom.
“It shouldn’t have even gotten that far. For somebody that’s never been in trouble, it’s crazy that he would even do something like that. It just made no sense. None of it was worth it.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
