The silver pickup truck was stopped on the side of the road, as Waterville’s deputy police chief, Charles Rumsey, approached the driver’s side door.
Rumsey had stopped the truck for speeding — going 43 in a 25 mph zone.
“Hello there,” Rumsey said.
The driver, a man, was agitated and loud.
“You guys are always pulling me over,” he said.
He also was arguing with a woman in the passenger seat.
She was chastising him for driving too fast; he kept telling her to be quiet.
“Sir, hold on, please,” Rumsey interjected.
The driver, ignoring Rumsey’s commands to show his hands, reached into the cab for something.
What? The vehicle registration or a handgun?
At that point, and quickly, Rumsey had decisions to make.
Things happened fast. The angry man thrust his hand out the window toward Rumsey, and Rumsey fired at what turned out to be a slip of paper — the vehicle registration.
“I just shot the registration out of his hand,” Rumsey said.
This situation was not real and did not occur on a Waterville street, but in the confines of the training room at Waterville Police Department.
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