Officer Shooting is Rare Event

Corporal Ed Hilton’s name will go down in Doylestown history, but probably not at all in the way he imagined.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, in the dark of night and the wind and enveloping rain of Hurricane Irene, Hilton became the first Doylestown Borough police officer to be shot in the line of duty in nearly a century.

The last known shooting of a Doylestown officer was in 1914, Police Chief Jim Donnelly said Wednesday, when Constable Henry H. Kolbe was shot and killed as he walked a suspect from the train station to the jail on Pine Street.

The bullet was removed from Hilton’s wrist this week, and by Wednesday, he was home recovering, Donnelly said. He is expected to be out of work for four to six weeks.

That he is alive at all is due to one thing, Donnelly is sure: divine intervention.

The bullet that shattered the bones in Hilton’s left arm came from an assault rifle that had been modified from the traditional M16 variety with a bigger barrel for a bigger bullet, Donnelly said.

As armed gunman Leonard Egland unloaded the assault rifle’s magazine at police on Sunday north of Doylestown, one of those bullets shattered the window of Hilton’s police car and struck him in the wrist as he was driving to assist fellow officers.

That the bullet didn’t strike Hilton’s chest or vital organs was more than lucky, Donnelly said.

“That tells you somebody’s watching out for you,” the chief said Tuesday, as he worked on writing up a commendation for Hilton.

It was early Sunday morning, just after midnight, and police across Bucks and Montgomery counties had been alerted that in the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital in Quakertown. The note he left with her indicated suicide, Donnelly said.

Police spotted Egland’s truck heading into Doylestown on Route 313.

The driver either missed or ignored the southbound ramp to Route 611, continued driving across the overpass, and turned right, heading south down the northbound exit ramp from Route 611, Donnelly said.

Pennsylvania State Police pursued the truck, which pulled over and stopped on the side of the road, he said.

Egland stepped out of the driver’s side, turned around, and trained his hatred and his assault rifle on the police behind him.

The night exploded with bullets.

“They found at least 15 rounds,” Donnelly said. “They think he emptied the magazine.”

Hilton was on the Route 313 overpass and had just turned down the ramp to assist the state police, who were now returning fire, when his window shattered, Donnelly said.

Another officer, from the Dublin borough force, also was injured in the eye by glass from a broken window during the shootout.

Leaving broken glass and wounded officers behind him, Egland jumped back in his truck and sped southbound in the northbound lanes of Route 611.

The manhunt was on.

Donnelly was notified that Hilton and the Dublin borough officer were being treated at Doylestown Hospital, and as other officers came to the hospital to check on them, Donnelly decided to stage the search from there.

He summoned every Doylestown Borough and New Britain Borough - where he also is chief - police officer and paired them into teams. No cop would work alone on this dangerous night.

County emergency response teams – commonly known as SWAT – were called in, too.

Donnelly then sent his officers in search of a madman.

“We did a grid search of the entire borough - every street, every parking lot, every back alley where he could hide,” the chief said Wednesday. “I did not want him rolling down an alley at 3 o’clock in the morning and deciding he didn’t like the way the guy next to him looked and shooting him. I wanted to know that he wasn’t in the borough.”

He wasn’t.

Shortly after 4 a.m., while they still were methodically searching Doylestown, officers got word that and was on the run there.

As Sunday dawned and residents started waking up, Warwick used a telephone alert system to send messages about the search for the gunman – with mixed results, due to power outages.

Doylestown never sent out an alert.

Donnelly said he felt it was unnecessary, as it was the wee hours of the morning. The late hour, combined with the storm, kept nearly everyone off the streets and in their homes, he said. Police stopped what few cars they saw in Doylestown during their search for Egland, he said.

After several tense hours, an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Donnelly said the bullet removed from Officer Hilton has been sent to investigators and will be used in the cases here in Buckingham Township and in Chesterfield County, Va.

Police still are investigating the deaths of Egland’s estranged wife, Carrie, 36, her boyfriend Scott Allred, 40, and Allred’s son, 7, in Virginia, and Carrie’s mother, Barbara Ruehl, 66, in Buckingham.

Meanwhile, Bucks County Judge Robert Mellon said Wednesday that he would make an announcement on Thursday about custody for the sole survivor of the tragedy, the Eglands’ young daughter, Lauryn.

A family member commenting on DoylestownPatch earlier in the week said Lauryn has family here in Pennsylvania as well as in Delaware and New York. "She will be cared for by some great loving family," the family member said.

As for Corporal Hilton, he will receive the commendation for his actions on that dark night at the next Doylestown Borough Council Meeting.

Warminster Editor James Boyle contributed to this story.