James Tully of Canadensis, who has to walk to work in the heart of the Eric Frein search area, has been stopped by police more than 20 times, including an encounter Friday night when he says he was roughed by an officer.
Posted on 10/21/2014 1:47:36 PM PDT by Bettyprob
James Tully of Canadensis, who has to walk to work in the heart of the Eric Frein search area, has been stopped by police more than 20 times, including an encounter Friday night when he says he was roughed by an officer.
Police searching for Eric Frein have questioned James Tully so many times that he started carrying his driver’s license and work identification on a neck lanyard to prove his identity.
But that wasn’t enough to keep him from being forced to the ground by gunpoint Friday on Route 447, and being held there, face down in the gravel, by a law enforcement officer driving a knee into his back, Tully said.
Tully, 39, lives off Snow Hill Road in Canadensis which has been a key area in the search for fugitive Eric Frein, the man accused of ambushing the police barracks In Blooming Grove on Sept. 12, fatally shooting a state trooper and injuring another.
A father of two, Tully has held a job at J.A. Reinhardt on Spruce Cabin Road, in Mountainhome for more than a year. He keeps up on his child support payments and barely makes the rest of his bills.
Tully does not own a car. The five-mile walk takes two hours each way. He walks to work in the early afternoon and walks home from midnight until 2 a.m. It hasn't been easy, Tully has a bad knee and sometimes walks with a brace and a limp.
The walk takes him along Route 447, a hot spot in the search for Frein. Since the search began, Tully has been stopped well over 20 times and questioned by law enforcement officers. Tully says he's been questioned as much as seven times during a round-trip walk to and from work.
Until Friday, it has usually been the same. Law enforcement rolls up and asks for his name and identification, where he is coming from, where he works, and then they move on. Some have asked him to keep his eyes and ears open for Frein and Tully did report a suspicious person to police once, since the search started.
Tully left work around midnight Friday and about 25 feet from his job’s driveway, police stopped and questioned him as usual.
A co-worker saw him and gave him a lift off Spruce Cabin Road to Route 447 where he walked for five minutes before another routine police questioning. He continued on for 10 more minutes and was near Brinkers Bridge near the intersection of Route 447 and Mill Creek Road when a silver SUV stopped.
"The driver jumped out screaming like a lunatic,” Tully said. He was dressed in camouflage and a tactical vest and had a rifle held high, pointing at Tully.
He did not see a badge or words on clothing. The man did not identify himself.
“The only I.D. I saw was the barrel of the gun,” Tully said.
“He yelled at me to get down on the ground with my arms out wide and he demanded my name.”
Tully says he complied immediately and that the man drove his knee into Tully’s back and continued to ask his name.
Tully told him his name over and over and explained that his identification was on the lanyard on his neck but that he was laying on it.
The law enforcement officer removed the bandana from Tully’s head and then grabbed the lanyard and yanked it off his neck.
“Good thing it had a break away clasp or he would have choked me.”
He continued to badger Tully.
“I will break you right here. What is your name?” the man asked, while still driving a knee into his back, Tully said.
Tully did not know where the gun was but he was afraid the man would shoot him.
“From the minute I saw him with that gun I thought, let me survive this.”
This went on for what seemed like 15 minutes or more when a state trooper who recognized Tully from previous questioning arrived and told the other officer that Tully was telling the truth about his name.
The trooper held out a hand and helped Tully stand up and helped him gather the items he had been carrying, which were scattered on the ground.
No one apologized.
It is unclear what agency the other officer is working with because Tully does not recall seeing any identification on the vehicle or the man’s clothing, and state police did not answer questions about this incident in time for this report.
The FBI, ATF, and US Marshall service are helping state police in the search.
“The trooper took a photo of me and my I.D. and said he would show it to searchers in the morning briefing,” Tully said.
Then, with scrapes and bruising on his bad knee, and pain in his back, Tully limped the rest of the way home.
He walked to work the next day, and was stopped three times. A trooper strongly advised Tully to find a different way to work, but the only other route for Tully is to walk through the woods. That would be even more suspicious. He cannot afford to give anyone money for gas and his parents, who live in Bushkill, cannot drive at night. He is out of options.
Tully did not finish his shift because he started to notice pain while breathing. He was taken to the hospital and learned that his ribs are bruised from the encounter.
He hopes police will pay for the time he had to take off work and for the X-rays and other medical expenses.
“We understand they have a job to do. Bur there are certain protocols,” said Bob Tully, James Tully’s father. “This guy apparently had delusions of grandeur that he would be the one to catch Frein. We completely commiserate with the police but this guy went full commando on my son.”
His mother, Linda Waddington Tully, bought a reflective vest, hat and gloves which he will now wear during the walk.
“Frein isn’t going to be wearing that,” she said. “I believe if not for that state trooper, he could have killed him.”
James Tully says he is having a hard time sleeping at night and he is nervous to walk to work now. “I’m worried about what is going to happen with the next one. Is he going to shoot first and ask questions later?”
the missing link between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon...
The important thing is that Rambo gets to be Rambo.
I’m wondering when the bootlickers will come along to tell us that Mr. Tully has an obligation to die when the demigods with badges eventually decide to kill him. And, of course, after a ‘thorough investigation’ any such act of murder under color of authority will be deemed ‘justifiable’.
If this is close to truth, maybe a good attorney could take care of his car problem, if not help him retire.
Dude should carry a Gatlin Gun and tell everyone to back off.
Given the odd circumstances you’d think that the troopers would just arrange to have somebody drive him from the edge of the woods to his workplace, and then back, so as to stay out of the way of the investigation. But that would take a brain and a heart.
He ought to get a friend with a video camera to shadow him on his walks and surreptitiously record every step.
It would also avoid a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
If Frein had shot a 10 year-old they would be looking for him but Tully wouldn’t be in this spot. It’s clear that the Samurai class wants to protect and avenge their own and peasants should simply be grateful to escape with their lives.
But why would they care. It’s paid from a treasury. There is too much divorcing of responsibility here.
When allegiance to God dies, strange lower allegiances form.
Eric Rudolph part 2.
We will have a new president long before Frein is found.
2 million dollars a week looking for this cop killer. If he would have shot 100 average persons this would not be happening at all!
I live in NW PA and this is on the news every friggin day and they show all these PROFESSIONAL COP CAR DRIVERS that have most likely never even walked in the woods any time in their life except maybe squirrel hunting going in with enough weapons to take out ISIS!
They show the back side of of the State police entering the woods and all I see is a bunch of over weight out of shape wanna be MARINES that just could not cut the mustard.
It has been mentioned 100’s of times to send in about 4 or so REAL MARINES and get this SHlT over with....
OK. That made me chuckle...
With all this publicity, does anyone imagine Frein would hang around? Even murderous cop haters have some will to live, usually.
(The only I.D. I saw was the barrel of the gun...)
New tagline material, right there! :)
Things have changed, maybe. This man is 39 y/o, and still needs his Mommy to go out and buy him a set of protectively marked gear? A vest, a hat and gloves? A least somebody thought to do this. He should so all in his power to change that routine, or go down to the police station and introduce himself if that hasnt already been tried. In my opinion, they don’t look that much alike. Maybe the builds are similar or perhaps the gait. You know what Jesse Jackson would say, “Stay Outta Da Bushes!”
After all this time in the woods, I’d imagine Frein has a good bit of facial hair and smells pretty ripe by now................
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