Mansfield 10

Man spends two days trapped in Mansfield storm drain

Mansfield —

A man who dodged police last month allegedly spent two days below ground eluding authorities, according to Mansfield police.

Officers were called to the Chauncy Street Stop & Shop June 25 after receiving a report of an unwanted patron who appeared intoxicated.

Upon his arrival, Officer Roy Bain was directed toward a man covered in cuts and scrapes sitting on a curb next to the supermarket gas station. The man’s T-shirt was dirty and appeared to have dried blood on the sleeves, according to Bain.

“The guy was a complete mess,” Bain said. “Every part of his body not covered by clothes was covered in scrapes, scabs, or blood.”

According to police reports, supermarket employees first encountered the man a day earlier when he was discovered in a storm drain on the property.

The manager of the supermarket told Bain a woman had been pumping gas at the station the day before when she noticed a nearby manhole cover bobbing up and down. After reporting what she had seen to a gas station attendant, an employee lifted the cover of the manhole and discovered a man inside the storm drain.

The man, identified as Barton Gray, 31, of Lynn Road in Ivoryton, Conn., told Bain he had been in town for the Phish concert at the Comcast Center on June 22 and had been staying at the Red Roof Inn on Forbes Boulevard with two friends. He said he had become stranded in town and was at the supermarket waiting for someone to wire him some money.

After he was questioned further, Gray began to recount a strange tale.

He told Bain he had been trapped underground in the storm drain system for several days. He said he could not turn around in the storm drain due to the small size of the pipes, which are roughly two-feet in diameter, according to Bain. At one point, Gray said he thought he was going to suffocate while he was trapped below ground.

According to police reports, Gray’s fingertips and palms were blistered and covered in cuts, most likely from dragging himself through the drain pipes.

Noting Gray’s distressed physical appearance, Bain decided to transport Gray to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro for evaluation. He left the man at the hospital and returned to work.

Bain later related the bizarre encounter to Mansfield court prosecutor, Kenneth Wright, who asked the officer what type of clothes Gray had been wearing.

After describing the bloodied t-shirt and other clothes the man had been dressed in, Bain was informed that Gray matched the description of a suspect who had been involved in an altercation with Officer Jeffrey Danner two days earlier.

While on patrol on June 23, Danner came across a crowd of about 30 people with balloons gathered in the rear parking lot of the Forbes Boulevard Red Roof Inn, according to an earlier police report. During the incident, which occurred around 1:55 a.m., the officer noticed a man in his mid-20s filling balloons and collecting money from people, leading him to conclude the balloons were being filled with nitrous oxide (more commonly known as laughing gas) or some other drug.

When he saw Danner approach, the man who had been filling the balloons ran away and allegedly threw rocks, change, balloons, and cans at the officer.

Danner ordered the man to stop several times, but he refused. Seeing the suspect reach into his right pocket, Danner drew his Taser gun and ordered the man to stop one last time before firing the Taser gun at the suspect.

According to police reports, only one of the gun’s two darts hit the subject, and the man was able to scale a nearby fence and escape into the woods adjacent to the hotel.

A barrier was set up along the nearby roadways while several officers scoured the area along Route 140 for the man. Despite their attempts, police were unable to locate the suspect.

“When he disappeared, he disappeared,” Bain said.

It was only after hearing the bizarre tale of the man who had been trapped in the storm drain that police were able to determine how the man had eluded police.

Bain, one of the department’s veteran officers, said the man’s tale is most likely the strangest thing he has encountered while on duty.

“In 15 years of policing, this has been the strangest (call),” he said.

No charges have been filed against Gray for his alleged involvement in the earlier incident, and there are no charges pending at this time.

“It was decided he had done his time,” Bain said.