Police: Zapped driver sheds stun gun barbs, flees
SALEM, N.H. (AP) - An unruly driver zapped with a stun gun during a traffic stop yanked out the barbs, assaulted the officer and fled early Saturday, prompting a two-state pursuit that also led him to steal a police cruiser and threaten to shoot officers, authorities said.
The fracas began shortly after midnight in Salem, in southern New Hampshire, when Officer Adam Pearson pulled over 52-year-old Robert Zygarowski, of Ellwood City, Pa., for a traffic stop. Police say Zygarowski was uncooperative so Pearson shocked him with the stun gun.
Police gave this account of what happened next:
Zygarowski pulled out the barbs, assaulted Pearson, then jumped in his car and sped away, beginning a chase that ended when his tire blew in Lawrence, Mass. When Pearson ordered Zygarowski and two others out of the car, Zygarowski charged at the officer and fled in the marked cruiser.
Pearson detained the other two until officers from surrounding police departments arrived to give chase. They found the abandoned cruiser a short distance away with no damage and all of its contents still inside.
A short time later, a man matching Zygarowski's description walked into a gas station in Methuen, Mass., said he had guns and was going to shoot officers, prompting the clerk to call police, authorities said. As police using dogs converged on the area, Zygarowski was spotted walking into and through the kitchen of an IHOP restaurant.
Police surrounded the area and found Zygarowski walking on a nearby trail, where another brief scuffled ensued.
Zygarowski was finally arrested and charged with assault, resisting arrest and other offenses. The other two people in the car were questioned and released without charges. One told police he repeatedly asked to be let out of the car Zygarowski was driving, authorities said.
Zygarowski refused the services of a bail commissioner and was taken to a county jail to await a Monday arraignment. He couldn't be reached for comment, and it wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
By LISA LEFF Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - President Barack Obama, who established his bona fides as a gay and lesbian rights champion when he endorsed same-sex marriage, has steadily extended his administration's advocacy to the smallest and least accepted band of the LGBT rainbow: transgender Americans.
With little of the fanfare or criticism that marked his evolution into the leader Newsweek nicknamed "the first gay president," Obama became the first chief executive to say "transgender" in a speech, to name transgender political appointees and to prohibit job bias against transgender government workers. Also in his first term, he signed hate crime legislation that became the first federal civil rights protections for transgender people in U.S. history.
Since then, the administration has quietly applied the power of the executive branch to make it easier for transgender people to update their passports, obtain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, get treatment at Veteran's Administration facilities and seek access to public school restrooms and sports programs - just a few of the transgender-specific policy shifts of Obama's presidency.
"He has been the best president for transgender rights, and nobody else is in second place," Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said of Obama, who is the only president to invite transgender children to participate in the annual Easter egg roll at the White House.
Religious conservative groups quick to criticize the president for his gay rights advocacy have been much slower to respond to the administration's actions. The leader of the Traditional Values Coalition says there is little recourse because the changes come through executive orders and federal agencies rather than Congress.
The latest wins came this month, when the Office of Personnel Management announced that government-contracted health insurers could start covering the cost of gender reassignment surgeries for federal employees, retirees and their survivors, ending a 40-year prohibition. Two weeks earlier, a decades-old rule preventing Medicare from financing such procedures was overturned within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Unlike Obama's support for same-sex marriage and lifting the "don't ask, don't tell" ban on openly gay troops, the White House's work to promote transgender rights has happened mostly out of the spotlight.