Lawrence, Reading men arrested, charged in separate assaults on Massachusetts State Police troopers

The Massachusetts State Police arrested a 24-year-old Lawrence man for an alleged assault on one of their own last week — one of two such assaults in as many days, the agency says.

“These incidents were brazen, and deliberately violent assaults perpetrated by motivated offenders on public servants who were engaged in their duties to protect our roads, our communities, our citizens, and our visitors,” said Col. John Mawn Jr., interim head of the MSP.

An MSP trooper pulled over Hernan Aybar Romero, 24, of Lawrence, on Interstate 495 in Tewksbury Friday night for some alleged motor vehicle violations — among them, according to a later list of charges, driving without a license, attaching plates, operating with a suspended or revoked registration, operating an uninsured motor vehicle, and not having an inspection sticker — and found out that the man had four outstanding warrants for his arrest on drug charges.

An MSP statement alleges that as the trooper was attempting to arrest him, Aybar Robero “became violent,” assaulted the trooper, and then re-entered his car and made his getaway. The trooper was treated for undisclosed injuries and then released from Lowell General Hospital, according to the statement.

Authorities say they tracked Aybar Romero down to an apartment in Lawrence where they arrested him Tuesday.

In addition to the earlier charges, Ayber Romero faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, resisting arrest, malicious destruction of property over $1,200 and refusing to identify himself to police.

The alleged attack came on the same day as an arrest of a suspect for another attack two days earlier, July 5, when MSP says 19-year-old Colin James Webb, of Reading, allegedly drove his motorcycle into a trooper as he escaped a daylight pullover.

The MSP, and a dash cam video released by the agency, show that the trooper was nearly pushed into the path of a pickup truck going through the intersection, but the trooper was able to release himself from the handlebars in time.

Webb is charged with assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, refusing to identify himself to police, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, failure to stop for police, and seven additional traffic violations.