Video has surfaced of officers arresting the son of a local police chief.
Christopher Fitzgerald, 22, son of Allentown police chief Joel Fitzgerald, was arrested back on August 29 after what authorities described as a road rage incident. Police alleged that he pointed a loaded handgun at Lehigh County detectives who were working undercover in Whitehall Township.
According to a police affidavit, the two detectives spotted Christopher Fitzgerald driving a white Nissan on MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township.
The officers claim Fitzgerald was jamming on the brakes of his vehicle until he came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. As the detectives approached the vehicle, they claim Fitzgerald pointed a loaded Glock handgun at them. The detectives say they then placed their vehicle in reverse and drove backwards, believing they were about to be shot. They then contacted police.
A viewer sent cell phone video of the officers arresting Fitzgerald to the Morning Call. The video shows the officers repeatedly telling Fitzgerald to get on the ground and put his gun down. Fitzgerald shouts, "I don't know who you are," and "I'm disarmed."
Chief Fitzgerald told the Morning Call his son was driving his girlfriend to work while his 1-year-old son was inside the vehicle at the time of the incident. In the video a woman, presumably Christopher Fitzgerald's girlfriend, screams towards him, "Baby put the gun down!" She is also heard telling the officers, "There's a baby in the car! Let me get my baby out the car!'
After the officers apprehend Fitzgerald, the woman is heard telling someone else, "They've got Christopher in handcuffs!"
Fitzgerald was charged with two misdemeanor counts each of simple assault and recklessly endangering others, as well as reckless driving and careless driving. He was arraigned last week and released after his father posted his bail.
According to the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office, Fitzgerald was a corrections officer at the Lehigh County Jail. Christopher Fitzgerald's defense attorney Jack McMahon said his client was fired from his job as a result of the charges and called his situation "tragic."
McMahon told The (Easton) Express-Times that his client has a license to carry a concealed firearm and pulled it out because he didn't know who the detectives were or why they were confronting him on the street.
But he said Fitzgerald never pointed the weapon at anybody and alleges that the detectives made that up to justify their conduct because they were racially profiling his client.
"If somebody points a gun at two armed police officers, we're not going to be talking to that defendant in my office," he said. "It's either going to be talking to his family after a burial, or in a hospital."
District Attorney Jim Martin called the profiling allegation "ridiculous."
"Mr. McMahon is wrong in a number of respects, and the evidence will play out as the case progresses," he said.
Joel Fitzgerald, reached for comment by the paper this week, directed inquires to McMahon.
"I'm not the center of this story, and everybody's making me the center of this story," he said. "It's really leaving a bad taste in my mouth."
