A defense attorney says the son of an eastern Pennsylvania police chief is innocent of charges that he pointed a gun at county detectives and alleges that his client was racially profiled.
Twenty-two-year-old Christopher Fitzgerald, son of Allentown police chief Joel Fitzgerald, was arrested Friday after what authorities described as a road rage incident.
Police alleged that he pointed a loaded handgun at Lehigh County detectives in Whitehall Township.
Defense attorney Jack McMahon told The (Easton) Express-Times that his client has a license to carry the gun and pulled it out because he didn't know who the detectives were or why they were confronting him, but he never aimed at anyone.
"I've been doing this 38 years and I can tell you this much: If somebody points a gun at two armed police officers, we're not going to be talking to that defendant in my office," McMahon said. "It's either going to be talking to his family after a burial, or in a hospital."
McMahon alleges that the detectives were racially profiling his client. District Attorney Jim Martin called that allegation "ridiculous" and emphatically denied that racial profiling was a factor.
