After a 21-year-old Worcester man was told to pull over by police while making a DoorDash delivery, the officer attempted to reach his arm inside the man’s car to unlock the door, according to the April 4 police report. The man then deeply inhaled his vape device and drove off, hitting the officer’s leg.
It wasn’t the first time he’s evaded police.
According to officials, John Slater has spent months evading them. His history of charges goes back eight years and in multiple Massachusetts towns, including charges in connection with shooting people with a paintball gun. Criminal complaints about Slater state that he has had 19 arraignments.
On April 24, Slater, who had nine outstanding warrants, was arrested in Worcester, according to the Worcester Police Department. He was charged with nine outstanding warrants, receiving a stolen motor vehicle and resisting arrest, the department said in a statement on Thursday.
For years, his mother, Anna Coll, said she been plagued with worry for her son as she called for officials to help rehabilitate him rather than put him in prison again.
He’s also been wrought with health issues, including seizures as the result of a violent car crash in Worcester before the paintball incident, she told MassLive. Seated in the passenger seat, Slater hit his head against the window of the car while his friend in the driver’s seat reached his arm over and held him back.
“I think [that crash] plays a big role when he’s high,” Coll said about why her son uses fentanyl.
But Coll said the death of Slater’s paternal grandmother has played a role in his drug abuse. She died in his room.
“John doesn’t care if he dies,” she continued. “He just wants to be with her. It’s like a connection [between him and his grandmother] in that house.”
Then on Christmas Eve 2023, Slater overdosed on fentanyl, Coll said. The family was more scared for his safety than ever, she said.
Still, his reckless behavior continued.
Avoiding police in Worcester
In April 2024 alone, State Police and Worcester police had already both interacted with and filed criminal complaints with Slater before his arrest on Wednesday.
On April 4, Massachusetts State Police trooper Zachary Gray was on patrol in Worcester when he saw a Chevrolet Cruze registered to Slater on its way to deliver a DoorDash order, according to court documents. Slater did not know where he was and Gray ordered Slater to pull over so the trooper could help him find the right address.
Gray checked Slater’s registration and saw that his license was suspended, Gray wrote in the criminal complaint. He turned on his body camera and his cruiser’s lights before he walked over to the driver’s side of Slater’s car.
“I don’t have nothing, sir,” Slater said when Gray asked if he had a license. Instead, Slater gave his social security number, which matched his car’s registration.
When Gray said he could end up in court, Slater replied that his father told him to “fight” a court summons for being pulled over in Shrewsbury, according to the court documents. Police said Slater became anxious and Gray requested assistance before approaching Slater’s car to arrest him.
Gray reached his arm inside Slater’s car to unlock the door, Gray wrote. Slater, after he deeply inhaled his vape device, drove off with the back of his car striking Gray’s leg and losing his balance.
Slater drove down Hawthorne Street to the intersection with Main Street, according to court documents. He drove around two stopped cars at a stop sign and turned left, without a turn signal, onto Main Street. Gray returned to his cruiser and followed but Slater “was well out of sight by this time and no longer in the area,” Gray wrote. “No pursuit was initiated.”
Gray and another trooper “circled the area and we were unable to locate the vehicle,” he wrote.
Then on April 17, Detectives John Denio, Ibsan Morales and David Green with the Worcester Police Department’s new Crime Gun Intelligence Unit found Slater’s Chevy Cruz at around 7:30 p.m. while patrolling in the area of Green Hill Park.
Denio, who wrote the statement of facts, said he saw Slater driving the car with a woman in the passenger seat, and was familiar with him from prior police investigations. The detectives tried to have him pull over, but he continued to drive off “in a manner that showed complete disregard for the safety of pedestrians,” Denio wrote. The detectives did not pursue him.
Ramming into a cruiser
At around 10 a.m. on April 19, Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Matthew Foley was notified about a driver in a Chevy Cruz who failed to stop for Worcester police before getting onto Route 146, according to a criminal complaint Foley wrote.
Slater led Massachusetts State Police on a chase on the Massachusetts Turnpike heading east toward Millbury before he made a U-turn and drove the wrong way into a police cruiser, which police believe was on purpose. Police said the 21-year-old continued driving the wrong way on the I-90.
State Police units and an Air Wing were deployed to look out for Slater and the Chevy but lost him.
The driver’s side and back end of the Chevy were damaged as a result. Slater’s license plate was found on the ground by police at the crash site, according to court records.
Years of trouble
Aside from his outstanding warrants, Foley has gone to prison for other offenses. One of those offenses involved a paintball gun.
At around 1:15 p.m. on April 14, 2021, when Slater was 18, he and another man, Sean Pinkham, then 21, of Douglas, were arrested after police arrived in the area of 831 Main St. for a reported assault with a dangerous weapon, police said. Police found a woman using a walker who was shot in the face by someone with a paintball gun.
The woman’s glasses were knocked off her face and covered in yellow paint, police said. Her injuries were not serious.
Another man on Queen Street was also shot by a paintball gun as a blue Ford F150 drove past, police said. The man was also not seriously injured, but was bleeding and had visible welts.
Finally, police found the Ford on Lincoln Street near the intersection of Goldthwaite Road and found the paintball gun in the back of the truck, the department said. Slater and Pinkham were arrested.
“As they were speaking with the occupants, a third victim came up and reported that the males had just shot paintballs at him on Lincoln Street,” police said.
Slater and Pinkham were both charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a disabled person. Pinkham did not have a license and had an outstanding warrant for his arrest, police said.
By May 31, 2022, Slater’s probation was revoked and he was sentenced to a nine-month term in the House of Correction before he was released in February 2023. But by March 3, 2023, Slater was in Worcester police custody again after he was charged with armed robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The arrest
Officers once again searched for Slater on Wednesday, April 24, in connection with the nine outstanding warrants and was suspected of having a stolen car.
Police found the stolen car at around 6:35 p.m. at the intersection of Shrewsbury Street and Imperial Road, but waited for Slater to appear and enter the car, the police report stated.
When he did, Officer Peter Bissonnette started to drive towards Slater, according to court documents. Bissonnette’s partner, Officer Anthony Lombardozzi, ran out of their cruiser toward Slater and tried to grab him. Slater closed his car door but Lombardozzi reopened it “and began to attempt to take a violently resisting Mr. Slater into custody,” Lombardozzi wrote in the police report.
Bissonnette, Lombardozzi and Officer Christopher Santley pulled Slater from the car, but he continued to resist arrest and it “took numerous attempts and an unknown amount of time” to get Slater to the ground, according to court documents. As more officers came to their aid, Lombardozzi wrote that they still could not get Slater’s arm behind his back as he “was continually putting his hands under his body … in what I believed was an attempt for him to retrieve a weapon to harm either myself or other officers on scene.”
Police finally placed him in handcuffs but Slater “continued his tirade and continually resisted and moved” in a way that looked like he would escape, Lombardozzi wrote.
“As a result of the violent struggle, my memorial bracelet was ripped off of my right wrist and was significantly bent,” he continued. “I suffered a cut on my left pinky knuckle that was bleeding, numerous cuts on my right wrist where my bracelet was, an approximate two-inch long cut under my left knee that was bleeding and a cut on my right elbow.”
Each of Slater’s outstanding warrants includes charges that stem from several criminal complaints filed out of Boylston, Fitchburg, Marlborough, Westborough and Worcester. Some of these outstanding warrants include charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, failing to stop for police, driving with a suspended motor vehicle registration, speeding, driving without a seatbelt and resisting arrest.
“Opening up a door”
After Slater’s arrest on April 24, a judge ordered him to be held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing, a spokesperson with Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.’s office confirmed with MassLive. On Tuesday, he was deemed dangerous.
But his mother left the courtroom with relief.
Croll said he’s not the criminal painted in the courtroom. Slater’s “not a fighter, he’s not violent but he is aggressive.” Before his hearing, she said her son was lovable and “like a hippy … his friends say he’s weird but it’s his humor.”
“He’s a party person,” Croll said. “He’ll light up a room. He’ll turn sour when he’s upset. ‘Ma, I feel more fear than they do but I have to have a tough face.’”
Seated next to his lawyer James Stanton in the courtroom, Slater was sober, alert and turned back to look at his mom and smiled.
The prosecutor said Slater has a “10-page record” and spoke of Slater’s charges in connection with the outstanding warrants. Slater driving off after all of these interactions with police showed a “continued theme,” the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor continued by bringing up Slater’s record, including past charges such as the paintball gun case and suggested to the judge that Slater’s history was a testament to not letting him be released.
Given the history of motor vehicle charges and the risk to the community, the judge deemed Slater dangerous. He said it was sad to see the history and wished Slater didn’t have it.
When she walked out of the courtroom, Coll, whose Chevy Cruze had been part of several of the chases, said it was good that her son was being held for now.
“I knew it would happen,” she said. “We knew, he knew. This is the most relief I’ve had to close this chapter. This could all end.”
Not only does keeping Slater in custody mean he will be away from anyone enabling him to take drugs or cause harm, but it also means his criminal history could be on the path of ending, she said. Before she walked out, Coll and the judge agreed that once this case is over, Slater’s next steps are to seek professional help to rehabilitate Slater.
“He’ll have outside help,” she said. “This is just the start. [This is] opening up a door to [give him] proper help.”
Slater is next due to appear in court on Aug. 22.
