State trooper and 3 others injured during crash in Palmer

State trooper, Steven Larocco, was struck in his vehicle yesterday morning while making a routine traffic stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike near Palmer, Massachusetts. The driver that hit Larocco, Robert Murangi, was cited by police as driving with an open container of alcohol.

Murangi rear-ended the police cruiser while it was parked between the median and left eastbound lane to investigate a stopped Jeep Liberty. Murangi’s Dodge Avenger ran into the back of the cruiser and forced it into the Liberty. Larocco and the driver of the Liberty were sent to the hospital along with the two passengers in Murangi’s Avenger. All were treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Earlier this summer, Colonel Marian J. McGovern, head of the Massachusetts state police, announced a trooper safety study after a series of incidents that saw five troopers struck and injured by motor vehicles – one of them, Sgt. Douglas Weddleton, fatally – in a five-week period. McGovern herself was was rear-ended in October 2010 on Route 20 in Shrewsbury by what turned out to be a repeat drunk driver with four prior convictions.

Source: Trooper, 3 others injured in crash, Boston Globe, January 3, 2011; Colonel McGovern Announces Trooper Safety Study, Mass.gov, July 22, 2010
The Massachusetts car accident lawyers at Altman & Altman can advise you if you have been injured on the road.