Bronx man charged with trying to kill trooper, steals trooper's car  

Published in the Home News Tribune 3/19/98

By MICHELLE SAHN
STAFF WRITER

A state trooper fired numerous shots at a Bronx man
who jumped into the trooper's police cruiser yesterday
and tried to run down the officer on the New Jersey 
Turnpike in Edison, authorities said.

State police, with some help from two parole officers,
caught Damian Steplight, 29, about two miles away in
East Brunswick after he abandoned the stolen car and
unsuccessfully tried to commandeer a tow truck, state
police Lt. Daniel Cosgrove said.

Trooper James Kenna, who suffered abrasions and
contusions, was the only person injured in the incident,
which began around 12:45 p.m., Cosgrove said. Kenna
was treated at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
in New Brunswick and released.

Traffic on the Turnpike was tied up for several miles
yesterday afternoon because police closed the entire
stretch of southbound inner roadway -- the car lanes that
run from Newark to Monroe -- while they processed the
two crime scenes, authorities said.

The incident began at milepost 84.7, just north of
Interchange 9, when Kenna, of the Cranbury Station,
stopped a Chevy Beretta for traveling 77 mph in a 55
mph zone, Cosgrove said.

When he stopped the car, he saw Steplight -- the back-seat
passenger -- making furtive movements, Cosgrove said.

Kenna then got some paperwork from the driver that
aroused his suspicions, so he called for backup. He
returned to the Beretta and asked Steplight to get out 
of the car.

Back