UPI Photographer Caught in Perimeter as N.Y. Fugitive Shot
MALONE, N.Y., June 26 (UPI) — A photographer for United Press International abruptly found himself near the center of the confrontation between law enforcement officers and escaped killer Richard Matt in upstate New York on Friday — a shooting that resulted in the fugitive’s death.
Matthew Healey, who had been covering the manhunt for UPI this week, was driving south along New York Highway 30 on Friday afternoon when he observed the sudden presence of speeding police vehicles. He ultimately learned that Matt had been tracked to the area.
Before long, New York State Police shut down Highway 30 near the town of Malone — located about 10 miles south of the U.S.-Canada border. The road was blocked off behind and in front of Healey’s vehicle, leaving him right in the middle of the escalating manhunt.
“I noticed five unmarked vehicles with their lights on and moving really fast, and that’s something I haven’t seen up here yet,” Healey said, adding that the police vehicles subsequently turned off the highway onto a trail head near Lake Titus. “Maybe 10 minutes later, a couple vans pulled up and they were what looked like SWAT units … they had assault rifles and dogs, and they were in full tactical gear.”
Authorities said an attempted carjacking in the area a short time earlier prompted police to rush to the highway near Malone.
“Above us, the helicopters started searching right above our heads, so I knew something was really happening,” Healey said. “There were no other civilian vehicles, so I knew they must have closed the road.”
Healey said the energy level among officers became increasingly higher as they closed in on the escaped murderer. Although he did not hear any gunfire, Healey said at one point word of “shots fired” crackled over a police radio.
“I think they said, ‘one down,'” Healey recalled. “And then, there was no reaction from the police. They got real quiet and just listened.”
As more police units arrived at the scene, Healey said they immediately secured the area — setting up roadblocks that shut down about a five-mile stretch of Highway 30. A large number of police vehicles and officers were at the scene within minutes of the shootout, and took up defensive positions on the fringe of the woods.
“I guess I was in the middle of the perimeter,” he said. “The [police] all started taking cover behind their vehicles with their weapons drawn, sort of trained on the edge of the forest across the road.”
The photographer said he did not catch a glimpse of Matt either before or after the shooting, though a police officer remarked that the escaped prisoner was discovered in a camper in the woods when he was approached by police.
“The [escapee] they shot was in a trailer or something,” Healey said. “They spotted him in a trailer and he approached somebody … and they just unloaded.”
Healey, who was the only member of the media inside the police perimeter — and virtually the only civilian there aside from a few neighbors — said he was asked to leave the area before Matt’s body was removed from the woods. But not before he was able to capture the intensity of the scene through his camera lens — which amounted to one half of the conclusion of a jailbreak that has made national headlines for three weeks.
“The helicopter and the police vehicles whipping by. The police taking cover behind their vehicle doors with their weapons drawn. The SWAT team entering the trail head with the dogs,” Healey said, describing the images he captured.
“It was obvious that the police were very serious about what they were doing, and not taking any chances.”
Healey, who lives in Boston, had followed police across New York state for multiple days this week photographing the manhunt for UPI — but said Friday there was “a different sort of feeling in the air.”
“When I heard the ‘shots fired’ over the radio, a forest ranger turned around and looked at me and … raised an eyebrow, you know, like ‘whoa,'” he said.
“You knew something was finally happening.”
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