After a Traffic Accident, Police Shoot Suspect in R.I. Murder

A Massachusetts man wanted for murder was shot by police yesterday after swinging a knife at officers while emerging from an auto accident in Midtown Manhattan.A Metropolitan Transit Authority police officer shot 36-year-old Joel Noonan at about 9:15 a.m., after the ex-convict crashed his black Jeep into another SUV at the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 63rd Street, authorities said. When he refused to exit his vehicle and threatened officers with a sheetrock knife, police said officers tried to subdue him with pepper spray, then shot him as he tried to flee the scene.Although it was not clear what drew Noonan to New York, authorities in Rhode Island had issued a warrant for his arrest Sunday night, after he allegedly stabbed to death a 37-year-old East Providence man. Noonan was spotted hours later at the Manhattan-bound Triborough Bridge toll plaza, where he tried to pay in coins and attracted attention. An officer reportedly noticed “suspicious” items in his vehicle, including blood on the car’s console, before Noonan sped off.Authorities in Manhattan may have been alerted to Noonan yesterday morning when he allegedly cut off a taxi at East 69th Street at about 9 a.m. Minutes later, police said, Noonan reportedly ran a red light at East 63rd Street and collided with a gray Pathfinder, pushing that vehicle onto the sidewalk, where it struck a pedestrian.Three passengers inside the Pathfinder were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries. The pedestrian, Evemarie Boisbel, 59, of Uniondale, N.Y., was pinned between the Pathfinder, a garbage can, and the side of a Lexington Avenue building, witnesses said. She was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital with a broken leg, a broken arm, and a dislocated shoulder. She was listed in stable condition last night, police said.MTA police officers were unable to coax Noonan from his car, and used pepper spray after he wielded a knife. When he exited the SUV, covering his face and slashing the air with his weapon, officers shot Noonan twice, striking him in the leg and abdomen. He was listed in stable condition last night.A superintendent of a nearby building, Jose Santiago, who ran to the scene after he heard screeching tires, said he heard several shots as he was approaching the accident.“I heard the cops say, ‘Freeze, freeze,’ and he didn’t stop,” Mr. Santiago said.Although authorities did not immediately disclose how many shots were fired, Mr. Santiago and other witnesses said they heard between three and four shots before Noonan collapsed in the crosswalk between 63rd and 64th streets.Authorities in Rhode Island said Noonan previously served nine years in a Walpole, Mass., prison after being convicted in a 1994 assault and battery case. He was released in 2002, after serving extra time for assaulting a guard while in prison, police said.Authorities were after him again Sunday night after police in East Providence allege he fatally stabbed 37-year-old Steven Dowgiala, a relative by marriage. In a statement, the deputy commander of the East Providence police department’s Detective Division, Lieutenant Steven Kennedy, said Noonan attacked Dowgiala inside his Kenton Avenue home Sunday, “eventually stabbing him in the chest.” Dowgiala was later pronounced dead at Rhode Island Hospital.Police said Noonan also assaulted Dowgiala’s wife and her 8-year-old daughter before fleeing the scene. Following the attack, local authorities issued an alert that Noonan was “possibly armed and dangerous,” police said.Yesterday, police in Rhode Island said they were working with New York law enforcement to extradite Noonan to East Providence, where he would be charged with first-degree homicide.

After a Traffic Accident, Police Shoot Suspect in R.I. Murder

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