November 20, 2009

N.C. chief knocked out while trying to stop suspect

The Fayetteville Observer

COATS, N.C. — A confrontation that saw the town's police chief knocked unconscious Tuesday afternoon led to a manhunt that ended in an arrest just before midnight.

Police Chief Eddie Jaggers tried to shoot a TASER at a suspect he had been chasing. When the TASER malfunctioned, the man knocked him out, Harnett County Sheriff Larry Rollins said.

Jaggers, a former detective with the Sheriff's Office, was treated at WakeMed in Raleigh and released, Rollins said.

Police dogs were brought in, and the suspect was found in nearby woods shortly before midnight.

Stefon Stewart, 43, of Holly Springs, was charged with assault on a government official and fleeing to elude arrest, Rollins said.

The sheriff said that he did not know how the chase started but that another Coats police officer and a county deputy working nearby responded to a call for backup and found the two vehicles along N.C. 27. The area is about eight miles west of Coats, near the Oakwood Mobile Home Park.

The chase apparently continued on foot. The lawmen found a semiconscious Jaggers, who eventually explained that he had drawn and fired his TASER when he confronted the man, but that it misfired and the man struck him in the head and knocked him out, Rollins said.

"He got blind-sided," the sheriff said.

A nearby resident told lawmen that he had seen the man in an adjacent woods, and search dogs were brought in to sniff him out, Rollins said.