Monroe deputy cut during altercation

4/27/2002

MONROE - A Monroe County sheriff's deputy was cut with a utility knife across his forearm early yesterday while trying to arrest a man suspected of breaking into an apartment in Frenchtown Township, authorities said.

Deputy Todd Sulfaro, 39, who earlier this month was named the sheriff's department's deputy of the year, received a gash approximately four inches long across his right forearm and was treated at Mercy Memorial Hospital.

Deputies were dispatched to the Frenchtown Apartments to investigate a breaking-and-entering complaint about 3:15 a.m. when Deputy John Bills saw a suspicious vehicle from the incident on War Road. The driver stopped for Deputy Bills but then sped off, deputies said.

During the pursuit, the suspect returned to the Frenchtown Apartments and allegedly intentionally rammed the parked, unoccupied vehicle of the victim in the original breaking-and-entering complaint, ending the pursuit.

The two deputies approached the vehicle and ordered the driver to surrender. When he allegedly failed to do so, they sprayed the suspect with a chemical irritant and reached in to pull him from the vehicle, only to have the suspect pull out a utility knife and cut Deputy Sulfaro's forearm.

The suspect, Richard Eugene Waldroup, 37, of Monroe, was facing charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, fleeing and eluding, two counts of resisting and obstructing, illegal entry, malicious destruction of property, and malicious destruction of police property.