In the case of Commonwealth v. Parker, a Massachusetts appellate court issued a nonbinding decision ruling on the crime of misleading a police officer engaged in a criminal investigation. The case arose when a police officer was dispatched to a street in Chelsea after shots were purportedly fired at the defendant bus driver.
The officer arrived at the scene. The defendant told the officer that someone boarded the bus, showed a handgun, and ordered her to hand him all her money, and then fired a shot that lodged in the driver seat. The defendant claimed she stood to get her wallet, but the person hit her and caused her to fall on the floor, and then the person snatched her wallet and fired shots at her. She claimed none of the bullets struck her, but two of them pierced the sleeve of her jacket.
The defendant described her attacker as a white male wearing a hooded jacket and told the officer that his firearm was similar to the officer’s. The officer conducted a search of the bus but didn’t find any shell casing that would have been ejected if a gun like his had been fired. He also didn’t smell gunpowder residue.
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