THOMASTON – A Fairfield man is accused of driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway and ramming state police cruisers on purpose.
At about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, police started getting 911 calls about a pickup truck driving north on the southbound side of Route 8 between Exits 11-12 in Shelton.
A state trooper approached the vehicle a few minutes later near Exit 15.
The 2009 Nissan Frontier driven by Thomas Plesz, 55, of Fairfield, continued speeding the wrong way, past the cruiser in the left lane of Route 8 south.
Surrounding towns were alerted to stop all traffic getting on Route 8 south.
Seymour police used stop sticks near Exit 21. The two right tires of the pickup truck were struck by the sticks but the truck kept going, doing about 60 on two rims.
State police went ahead of Plesz to warn approaching drivers and made several more attempts to stop Plesz, but he went around them and intentionally rammed into one cruiser just before Exit 38 in Thomaston, before crashing into the back of another and stopping, according to police.
Plesz was charged with reckless driving, disobeying the signal of an officer, drunk driving, driving the wrong way, interfering with police, assault on an officer and reckless endangerment.
He was held on a $25,000 bail and is due in court in Derby on Wednesday.
