CONCORD, NH — New Hampshire State Police placed NHTI, Concord’s community college, in lockdown Monday night as they searched for a suspect who eluded capture from a hotel on Hall Street earlier in the evening.
Around 6:30 p.m., state troopers, along with Concord police assisting, met in Bow for a joint operation warrant arrest of a man possibly involved in an assault incident. However, no specifics were given over the air about the case. The arrest was to take place at the Comfort Inn on Hall Street.
Troopers and Concord police surrounded the hotel and identified potential vehicles the suspect could escape in.
Around 8 p.m., before attempting to move in to make the arrest, the suspect fled the scene in a GMC pickup truck, one of the three suspected vehicles police were watching. Troopers began chasing the vehicle while other investigators spoke to a woman connected to the suspect in the hotel.
The suspect drove north on Interstate 93 and got off at Exit 14 and entered Fort Eddy Road. A dashcam video was posted to the Horrible Drivers of New Hampshire Facebook Group, linked here, of the suspect speeding away from troopers north in the southbound lane of Fort Eddy Road during the chase.
The suspect drove east onto Interstate 393. Around Exit 3, the suspect was able to get away from police on Route 106.
Other officers searched Walmart and the Steeplegate Mall areas.
Police at the hotel spoke to the woman and reported to others in the field that the suspect had made a gun-suicide threat, too.
One trooper, however, reported possibly seeing a pickup in the manufactured home park along Fort Eddy Road. The trooper went back to the park and searched it but did not find the truck. The trooper then went to the NHTI campus parking lot and found the pickup truck.
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State police arrived at the school and confirmed by drone that no one was inside the truck. They called campus security and requested video surveillance footage of the suspect. The school was also placed on lockdown.
Listen: Snippets from 13 minutes of scanner audio as NHSP and Concord police attempted to secure the suspect:
One state trooper contacted the suspect, named Charlie, and attempted to find out where he was. Charlie could be heard screaming that he did not know where he was because he was not from the Concord area. At one point during the conversation, the suspect threatened to jump in front of a vehicle on the Interstate, according to scanner chatter. The trooper broadcasted his conversation with others in the field to keep them posted on what was happening.
A little past 9 p.m., the suspect was found along a footpath behind the police academy toward the river and taken into custody.
News 603 posted video from NHTI on Facebook:
Concord NH Patch will post audio from the interaction of the suspect and state police. Refresh for updates.
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