A traffic stop erupts in peril, death in Malden MA

A traffic stop erupts in peril, death in Malden
Chief says killing was self-defense

By Peter Schworm and Travis Andersen
Globe Staff Globe Correspondent / August 5, 2009

MALDEN - The driver of the car, 20-year-old Alexander S. Nesom, had a long history of drugs and violence and was once accused of trying to kill his father with a baseball bat at their Cape Cod home in 2006. Beside him sat Mark Dwyer, 24, of Worcester, a pest-control worker with two drug cases on his record. In the back seat was James Calo, a local man with convictions for larceny and drug trafficking, who police say was carrying capped needles and two bags of heroin in the waistband of his pants.

Police who pulled over the white Toyota Monday evening around 7 knew none of that. On a hunch, a patrolling officer had run the plates on the car, learning it had been reported stolen in Brockton. And as the vehicle came slowly to a stop on Salem Street, a busy residential road, the situation seemed manageable, if not routine.

Yet when the officer pulled Dwyer from the car, the encounter took a dire and ultimately deadly turn. Nesom allegedly chucked the car into reverse and barreled backward, ramming the cruiser and knocking the officer to the ground, allowing Dwyer to escape. As two patrol cars arrived at the scene to box in the Toyota, Nesom gunned the engine and surged forward, striking two officers and their vehicles in an attempt to get away, authorities said. Fearing he would run them down again, authorities said, the officers fired single shots at close range, fatally wounding the driver.

Yesterday, authorities defended the officers who fired on Nesom as well-trained and decorated veterans who used their weapons in self-defense.
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A traffic stop erupts in peril, death in Malden