KINGWOOD — Bond is set at $600,000 for a Maryland man accused of knocking a Masontown Police officer to the ground and nearly running him over with a car last year.
Thomas Bradley Upole Jr., 24, was booked into the Tygart Valley Regional Jail Wednesday. He is charged with two felonies: fleeing with bodily injury and malicious assault on an officer.
According to criminal complaints by Masontown Police Chief M.E. Hoefler, he and fellow officer B. Poling were on routine patrol Oct. 17, 2019, when they saw a car parked near the bottom of the town park.
They stopped and told Upole, the driver, they were contacting him because of prior complaints of drug use in the area. He saw brass knuckles on Upole’s lap and a propane torch on the female passenger’s lap, Hoefler wrote.
Asked for an ID, Upole “became combative” and refused to provide one. Then he started the car and put it into reverse.
“Since both doors were still open at the time, it drug both officers backwards, causing injury to [Hoefler’s] leg and causing him to be knocked to the ground,” according to the complaint. Both officers deployed their Tasers at Upole, “causing no effect.”
Then Upole allegedly, “placed the car into drive and drove directly at,” Chief Hoefler’s head as the officer was staring directly at the front tire. Hoefler, “was just able to get out of the way of the speeding car,” he said.
A small bag of meth was found by the officers after the car sped off.
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