'We don't dial 911'
Toolbox
By Gordon Dritschilo Herald Staff - Published: August 21, 2008
LEICESTER — Ed Foley said he spent much of Tuesday night listening to the police scanner.
"We knew something was going on, but we didn't know how bad," he said.
Police said that someone shot Richard Carroll, one of Foley's neighbors, before joining three other men in leading police on a chase through Rutland and then west to the New York state line Tuesday night.
Foley, 69, lives not far from the site of the shooting on Lake Dunmore Road. Foley said he didn't actually hear the shots, but they sent ripples up and down the road.
"It bothers me," he said. "It's kind of scary. I've lived here all my life and it's getting bad. … I don't know, this drug war is something else."
Foley said he has heard a lot about drug investigations in the area, and that he was taking a few countermeasures of his own.
"I got a loaded .357 right in my vehicle," Foley said. "I see one of these huckleberries, he's going to die."
Foley's approach seemed to have some support. At least two other houses along the road had signs bearing a picture of a handgun and the words "We don't dial 911."
Farther up the road, 50-year-old Ida Harrington, said she felt secure thanks to a different sort of protection — a large Rottweiler named "Moose."
"I don't think anyone else was in danger here," she said. "I think it was a very specific thing that happened here. I think they knew who they were going to see. It's not like the last one where the guy was running through the woods and I was calling my neighbors, telling them to lock their doors."
"The last one" was a drug bust last month stemming from a traffic stop on Lake Dunmore Road. Police said a local woman and a man from New York were in the back seat of the car and had $25,000 worth of heroin with them. Police said the man, Oluwaseun Subair, tried to run away and was captured an hour later.
Harrington said he ran right through her property before police caught up to him. Several other people on Lake Dunmore Road said the incident weighed on their minds following the shooting.
"I think it's too close to home," Harrington said. "On TV, I see there's a shooting in Chester or some other place in Vermont. It's city coming up here. I don't like it. It's not supposed to be here."
Joyce McCoy, 55, said Lake Dunmore Road is usually quiet. She said her house was broken into a few years ago, but the only thing stolen was a broken VCR.
"We've had a few robberies on this road," she said. "As far as anything like shootings, no."
Foley and a few others made references to Carroll's criminal record. He was recently furloughed from a five- to 15-year sentence for dumping toxic chemicals in Otter Creek, and Probation and Parole District Manager Michael O'Malley said Carroll's criminal record goes back to a stabbing in 1985.
O'Malley said his office was investigating Carroll's role in the incident and whether he violated his furlough.
McCoy, though, expressed sympathy for Carroll and his family.
"He seems very friendly and nice," she said. "I hope they got all the guys that did it. Richard has two small children. I just hope the children were sleeping and didn't see anything. That's a heck of a thing for a child, to see his father get shot."
Nobody answered the door at Carroll's house Wednesday afternoon. It was one of the quietest spots on the road.
Herald reporter Brent Curtis contributed to this story.
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.