"I can't begin to describe the hurt and sorrow being experienced by the Pennsylvania state police," Pawlowski told a somber news conference at the Swiftwater barracks, the trooper's home base. "What happened yesterday is nothing short of an American tragedy."
The chase Sunday night began outside Easton, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia, and ended just east of Tobyhanna in the Pocono Mountains when troopers purposely bumped Autenrieth's car, causing it to spin into a guard rail along state Route 611.
As Troopers Joshua Miller, 34, and Robert Lombardo, 35, rushed the driver's side, Autenrieth took out a handgun and fired three shots from close range, police said. Though both troopers were hit, they returned fire, striking Autenrieth eight times.
As the troopers and Autenrieth traded fire, two other officers plucked the boy from the front passenger seat of the car. The boy escaped injury.
Autenrieth, 31, died at the scene. Miller, a Marine veteran who joined the force in 2002, was shot in the neck and thigh and was rushed to a hospital near Allentown, where he died of his wounds. Lombardo was treated for a gunshot wound and was released.
Miller was married with three children. Lombardo has been with the state police for five years. Both troopers are from Pittston.
Outside the Swiftwater barracks Monday, about two dozen troopers, state police personnel and police officers from other departments lined busy Route 611, standing at attention and saluting as a convoy of police cruisers and a police helicopter went past, escorting a hearse carrying Miller's body to a funeral home in Pittston.
Pawlowski called Miller "a hero."
"An individual embroiled in a domestic dispute for some reason chose to escalate the violence, and it ended with a hero losing his life, a wife losing her husband and three children losing a loving father," Pawlowski said.
Police were trying to figure out what set off Autenrieth, who was supposed to drop off his three children curbside at his estranged wife's townhouse Sunday night. Instead, he went into the house in Nazareth - ignoring a May 18 protection-from-abuse order that forbade it - and began arguing with her.
A neighbor, Arlene Benginia, said she heard the couple screaming at each other. By the time she got outside to investigate, police had arrived but Autenrieth and his son were gone.
"He has my son! He has a gun!" screamed the wife, Susan Autenrieth, according to Benginia.
Police immediately took off in pursuit and soon caught up to the suspect. The chase lasted more than 30 minutes and involved nine police cruisers as Daniel Autenrieth threaded busy intersections and floored it on major highways, authorities said.
"It was just sheer havoc out along the roadway," Pawlowski said. "It was an extremely dangerous situation."
Police said they are investigating how Autenrieth got the gun. Because he was subject to a protection-from-abuse order, he was not permitted to have one.
No one answered the door Monday at the home.
Susan Autenrieth's landlord, Jay Orwig, said she moved to the townhouse with her three children in February. Her husband, who lived in nearby Palmer Township, "obviously wasn't thinking about the children at all," he said.
Susan Autenrieth's next-door neighbor, Rachel Lilly, said she met Daniel Autenrieth once, when her children and his children played together at a community park. She said he seemed normal.
"I feel so bad for all the children of the families involved, especially the children of the trooper," Lilly said. Susan Autenrieth, she said, is "a sweet lady who doesn't deserve this."
NEW YORK AND TRI-STATE AREA NEWS
USEFUL LINKS:
REPORT A TYPO || GET WIDGET
VIDEO: Eyewitness News || VIDEO: ABC News || VIEWER PHOTOS & VIDEOS ||
