Crime & Safety

Who Shot Up Upper Nazareth Police Car?

The Upper Nazareth Police Department is seeking who is responsible for shooting up a police car late last week.

Upper Nazareth Township Police Chief Alan Siegfried is perplexed.

He's trying to solve a crime in which someone fired more than 20 bullets into a police car and took a dummy dressed as a police officer and threw it into traffic late last week.

"It's a little bit disturbing," the chief said. "We have no idea."

For over a year, the police department has used a 2003 Ford Crown Victoria that was taken out of service for use in a dummy police car program.

"It was an old car. We were going to sell it or junk it," Siegfried said. "It was bad before the shooting. The paint was peeled off. But it still looked like a police car from a distance."

Siegfried said the vehicle gets used as a police presence around stop signs, for speeding or other enforcement issues.

"It's a deterrent," he said. "When we have trouble spots, we park it there."

Siegfried said the dummy, dressed as a police officer in full uniform with sunglasses and a hat, was made by officers in the department. Its head resembled a mannequin head used to display wigs.

The gunman removed the mannequin from the vehicle and threw it across the road, where its head was smashed by oncoming traffic, the chief said. The suspect ran off, he said.

But the chief said police have a description of the suspect.

Witnesses described a white, husky man with thinning hair firing at the police car with a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun. The shooter wore blue jeans, possibly a gray T-shirt and a mask over his face, Siegfried said.


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