WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) — A truck driver who fatally struck a Massachusetts police officer and a utility employee, pulled a knife on another officer, stole his cruiser and crashed has an “unbroken chain” of crimes going back to 1996, a prosecutor said at a detention hearing Thursday.
A judge ordered that Peter Simon, 54, of Woodsville, New Hampshire, continue to be held without bail as he awaits trial on charges stemming from the Dec. 6 crashes in Waltham that killed Waltham police Officer Paul Tracey, 58, and a 36-year-old National Grid worker identified as Roderick Jackson, of Cambridge.
Simon’s next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 29. His lawyer, Lynda Dantas, said some of the charges on his record were dismissed and mentioned there are “significant mental health issues here,” without specifying them.
Simon has a “complete mental health network” in New Hampshire and an apartment, said Dantas, who asked for home confinement, including an electronic monitoring device. She asked that he be allowed to leave for medical treatment only.