Carjacking thwarted
Published: September 5, 2003
A Norwell woman found herself in the midst of last week’s harrowing police chase that ensued following a bank robbery in Braintree.
Investigators with the Braintree police and the FBI identified William Brymer, 31, of Quincy, as a suspect in the robbery of the Telephone Workers Credit Union at the South Shore Plaza in which two men fled in a stolen car, carjacked a truck on a nearby street, and tried to force Kathleen O’Connor of Norwell out of her Nissan Maxima at gunpoint on Route 3.
“They came up to my driver’s side and tried to get in the driver’s side, and I just kept thinking, ‘This is wrong.’ I tried to hold the door shut, and I tried to lock the door,” O’Connor told WCVB-TV (Channel 5). “I was screaming the entire time.”
O’Connor was saved by Mark Bradley, 31, who was heading home on Washington Street from his job as a court officer at Dedham Juvenile Court.
“I saw two guys hopping over the guard rail,” he said. “They started walking up the middle of the road.”
Bradley, with the hopes of scaring O’Connor’s attackers, rammed her car into the guardrail, forcing the gun-toting men to run into the woods.
“I saw them trying to get into the woman’s car,” Bradley said. “One of the kids was jiggling the door handle on the front passenger side, but he couldn’t get in so he hopped in the back seat. The other one ran around the front to try and get in the passenger side. That’s when I yelled and he pulled the gun on me, but as soon as he put the gun down, I sideswiped (the Maxima) right into the guard rail.”
Bradley, whose second child is due in two weeks, was driving a Dodge Ram.
“I kept saying (to O’Connor), ‘Calm down, calm down. Write down everything you remember right away.’ I think it took her mind off things for a while,” Bradley said.
The foiled carjacking of O’Connor’s recently-washed black sedan may prove valuable to investigators.
“They (the suspects) weren’t wearing gloves at that point, and we’re told they had their hands all over it,” Jenkins said.
Brymer was arrested on Martha’s Vineyard Saturday. There are two more suspects in the case, and the investigation is ongoing, Police Lt. Russell Jenkins told the Braintree Forum on Tuesday. Anyone with information is invited to call (781) 794-8620.
Brymer was tracked to a residence in Aquinnah, and was arrested without incident on the evening of Aug. 30 on three unrelated Boston police warrants, and taken to the Dukes County House of Correction until his Tuesday arraignment in Boston.
Officers with the state police, the Martha’s Vineyard Drug Task Force, and the West Tisbury, Chilmark, and Aquinnah police participated in the arrest.
Investigators hope a more recent photograph of Brymer will help witnesses identify the suspects involved in the credit union robbery and carjacking.
“Everyone remembers the big guns but has less vivid memories of the suspects’ faces,” Jenkins said.
According to Jenkins, at approximately 5:42 p.m. on Aug. 28, police received a report of an armed robbery at the credit union at South Shore Plaza.
Two masked men armed with handguns, one of which was described as large and silver colored, robbed the credit union of an undetermined sum of money and fled in a stolen minivan.
A Plaza security officer, who was unaware a robbery had just been committed, was flagged down by credit union employees and told to get the license plate number of the minivan.
The security officer lost sight of the minivan as it turned onto Common Street, but relocated the suspects as they were dumping off the original stolen vehicle and entering a second vehicle, which was stolen earlier from the Plaza.
When the suspects were confronted by the security officer, one of them threatened him with a firearm.
The security officer retreated, and the suspects fled a short distance and drove head-on at a pickup truck which was traveling down a side street approximately a mile from the credit union.
After they forced the pickup over, the suspects attempted to pull out the driver, but his seatbelt prevented this.
A struggle ensued, and the driver was eventually able to free himself from the truck as one of the suspects took the wheel and the other jumped into the cargo area of the pickup.
The suspects fled a short distance and turned onto a dead end road, where they abandoned the truck and fled on foot onto the Washington Street off ramp from Route 128.
Once on the off ramp, the suspects tried to force cars over at gunpoint, including the Norwell woman’s car.
Police said the suspects continued their flight as police from Braintree, Randolph, Weymouth, and Quincy, as well as state police, responded.
Officers chased the suspects on foot down the MBTA railroad tracks and lost them in the area of the Home Depot store near the Quincy Adams T station.
Responding officers, along with officers from the MBTA police and members of Metro-STAR (the Metropolitan Special Tactics And Response Team) formed a perimeter around the Home Depot and the T station.
Train service was stopped as officers searched the tracks.
The Home Depot was cleared of all employees and customers until police searched it.
Cars entering the MBTA parking garage and the interior of the garage were also searched.
At approximately 9 p.m., after a thorough search of the area which included K-9 teams and a state police helicopter, the search was suspended.
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