34-Year Sentence For Man Who Rammed 3 Cops With Stolen SUV

A Queens man Oct. 16 was sentenced to 34 years in prison for assaulting three NYPD officers by ramming their vehicles with an unmarked Metropolitan Transportation Authority police vehicle that had been reported stolen.

Larry D. Barton, 49, was convicted earlier this month of three counts of attempted aggravated murder, three counts of second-degree assault, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property in a trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron.

‘Used Vehicle as a Weapon’

“The defendant used the vehicle he was driving as a weapon, inflicting injury on three police officers who were only doing their job,” Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said.

According to trial testimony, Mr. Barton was observed by three plainclothes NYPD Detectives at approximately 2:10 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2008, getting into the driver’s seat of a 2001 Dodge Durango parked at an intersection in Jamaica, Queens. The sport utility vehicle, which was an unmarked MTA police vehicle, had been reported stolen two days earlier.

The three Detectives, who were sitting in an unmarked NYPD Ford Explorer and displaying shields around their necks, drove up to the Durango so that the cars were nose to nose. Two of the Detectives—Michael Busso and Michael Pesale—exited their vehicle and approached Mr. Barton.

They repeatedly asked Mr. Barton to step out of the vehicle, but he refused and instead started the Durango and drove forward, pushing the NYPD Explorer, with Detective William Heiser still behind the wheel, backwards into the middle of the intersection, according to the DA. Mr. Barton then rammed the Durango into the Explorer, which caused the air bag to deploy. This caused Detective Heiser to suffer bruising and substantial pain to his chest, ribs, lungs and left hand. Mr. Barton then drove at high speed toward the other two Detectives and attempted to hit them.

Drove Into 2 More Cops

A few minutes later, uniformed Police Officers Peter Boneta and Vicky Tobin were sitting in their patrol car at a nearby traffic light when Mr. Barton drove the Durango into the front passenger side of their vehicle, causing Officer Boneta to suffer bruising and substantial pain to his right leg. Officer Tobin sustained bruising and substantial pain to her right shoulder.

After Mr. Barton was arrested, the passenger in his vehicle, Sonia Mc- Clean, 53, was separately charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance after police recovered a glass pipe containing cocaine. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.