By By ANDY HAMILTON / Niles Daily Star
NILES – It all happened pretty fast for Glyn Pritchard.
He and friend Billy Ray Odell walked up last summer to the accident scene on South 13th Street near Fulkerson Road because they heard from Pritchard's father there was an altercation. The next thing he knew, Pritchard said he was handcuffing the driver of one of the vehicles to the steering wheel.
"I don't know what I was thinking. It was crazy," Pritchard said.
Pritchard was honored Thursday at the Niles Law Enforcement Complex with a Distinguished Citizens Award for his role in helping Michigan State Police Trooper Shawn Kolonich make the arrest. Odell and Niles resident Terry Lee Lane, Jr. also received the award.
Pritchard, of Niles, Odell, who now lives in Oklahoma, and Lane all assisted Kolonich in securing and arresting the subject responsible for the accident. Kolonich was initially told he was responding to an accident and a fight involving the two drivers, but it turned out to be a struggle between trooper and driver.
"When I got there everything was calm, so I disregarded all by back up flying down the road," Kolonich said.
Pritchard said when he and Odell approached the scene they saw a tiny car smashed into the rear end of a Camaro. Then they saw Kolonich trying to stop Christen Nancy McFadden -the driver of the vehicle that rear-ended the Camaro – from driving off.
"[Billy] just started running out there," Pritchard said. "He jumped in and I was like, Billy get back here."
Kolonich had approached McFadden on the passenger side while she was still in her vehicle and asked for her paperwork. McFadden, who was believed to be under the influence of drugs, then turned the radio up, threw the car in reverse and tried to flee, dragging Kolonich 50 feet with half his body hanging out of vehicle.
Kolonich said he grabbed McFadden and tried to stop the vehicle, and the driver responded by kicking the trooper in the head. Odell stuck his head in the car from the driver's side and held McFadden.
Once Kolonich finally got the car in park, Pritchard pulled the keys out of the ignition and threw them in the patrol car, and then grabbed the trooper's handcuffs and secured the driver to the steering wheel. Meanwhile, Lane got on Kolonich's radio and called for back up.
"She was yelling all obscene stuff," Pritchard said.
But, the struggle was still not over.
"When the back up got there, it was still hard to get her out of there," Kolonich said, adding they had to cut McFadden's seatbelt to remove her, and she later kicked out the window on a Berrien County Sheriff's patrol car while being transported to St. Joseph.
Kolonich, 36, and a 9-year veteran of the Niles State Police post, was taken to the hospital and treated for scrapes to the face, and later had to have surgery on his shoulder, which kept him off duty for six weeks, he said.
McFadden, 22, of South Bend, Ind., was charged with assault of a police officer, malicious destruction of police property and operating under while impaired. Through a plea bargain she was sentenced to 270 days in jail and four years probation.
Capt. Gregory A. Krusinga, 5th District commander, stated in his letter to Pritchard that his "unselfish assistance should be recognized." First Lt. Michael Brown, Niles post commander, said the State Police probably gives 30 to 40 Distinguished Citizens Awards per year across the state.