Executive Left Shaken by White Trooper Misconduct
‘It was terrifying’: Black Chadds Ford couple left shaken by white Pa. trooper’s alleged misconduct
Rodney and Angela Gillespie were excited when they returned July 1 to the United States, to the home they’d built in 2007 on a 2.7-acre parcel in a leafy section of upscale Chadds Ford. His job as a senior executive with AstraZeneca, the multinational pharmaceutical company, had taken them first to London for three years and then to Johannesburg for three years.
Capping their first week back, the couple spent the evening of July 7 with family and friends in Lambertville, N.J. Driving home just after midnight, Rodney turned the family’s rented black Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo onto their heavily wooded, unlighted street near Baltimore Pike. That’s when their welcome home took an unforeseen turn.
Flashing blue lights and the jarring blare of police sirens signaled trouble for the couple and their 17-year-old daughter, Jaida, who was sleeping across the backseat. Their other daughter, Jasmyn, 22, was not in the car.
“My wife was asleep, my daughter was asleep, and I said, ‘Oh boy, here we go,’ ” Gillespie recalled in an interview at the family’s home. “I said, ‘I’m just going to pull in the driveway because obviously it’s dark, the street has no shoulder, I don’t feel safe here.’ ”
SOURCE ⇒ PHILADELPHIAINQUIRER
