April 3, 2000

FUGITIVE APPREHENDED IN FLORIDA 

      TRENTON – A Strike Team in Florida today arrested a Ewing man accused of shooting and wounding his estranged wife and shooting at a co-worker of the woman’s last year in Princeton Borough, Mercer County Prosecutor Daniel G. Giaquinto and the U.S. Marshal Glenn D. Cunningham announced.

      Errol Thompson (DOB 10/23/49), whose last known address was the 1300 block of Country Lane in Ewing, had been at large since the shooting. Thompson was nonetheless indicted here on March 6 in a 19-count indictment representing attacks to both victims, Giaquinto said.

      Thompson was arrested about 1:30 p.m. today by members of the Fugitive Investigative Strike Team, based in Tampa, Fla. Thompson was arrested while working as a dishwasher at a St. Petersburg, Fla., Jamaican restaurant, Giaquinto said.

      The incident in Princeton Borough occurred Oct. 18, 1999, at about 7 a.m. in the parking lot of the Merwick Subacute Care and Rehabilitation Unit of The Medical Center at Princeton. Thompson’s estranged wife, Dorothy Thompson, was shot three times but recovered. The victim had driven to work with a co-worker, Shemond Jefferson, who was allegedly shot at by Errol Thompson but was not wounded, Giaquinto said.

      The Florida Strike Force is comprised of members of the U.S. Marshals Service, along with special agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and local Florida police.

      Thompson was arrested after leads were forwarded to the U.S. Marshals Service by members of the Central Jersey Fugitive Task Force, of which the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office is a member.

      Following the shooting, a special task force was formed to seek Thompson but intensive efforts failed to locate him in New Jersey. In December, a federal warrant was issued for Thompson for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution here.

      Today, the U.S. Marshals Service received information from a fingerprint check that Thompson had been arrested Saturday in St. Petersburg on a public intoxication charge, following an incident in which he allegedly threatened to “blow up” the home of a woman identified by officers as his “girlfriend.” When arrested, Thompson gave an alias, claiming to be “Derrick Johnson.” After spending the night in jail, Thompson was released but was re-arrested after officers obtained results of the fingerprint tests and learned his true identity.

      When Thompson was approached by arresting officers, he scuffled with police and, as a result, was charged with resisting arrest. He is being held without bail in the Pinellas County Jail in Florida.

      Thompson is believed to have been living under the assumed name in the 2000 block of Third Street in St. Petersburg and to have been working at several part-time, laborer-related jobs.

      Thompson’s Mercer County indictment includes two counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault, and weapons offenses. If convicted, he could be sentenced to at least 40 years in prison.

      At the time of the shooting, Thompson had been out on bail awaiting sentencing on third-degree charges of terroristic threats stemming from a May 26, 1998 incident in which he had threatened to kill his wife.

      The local task force formed to find Thompson was comprised of members of the U.S. Marshals Service and the Central Jersey Fugitive Task Force that included officers from the prosecutor’s office, Princeton Borough, Ewing and Trenton police departments.

      “We appreciate the continued efforts of all law enforcement agencies involved which led to the safe capture of a fugitive who was considered armed and dangerous and who had left the state and fled to St. Petersburg,” Giaquinto said.

      It was not immediately known whether Thompson would waive his right to an extradition hearing thereby precipitating his immediate return to Mercer County or whether an extradition hearing would be conducted in Florida, Giaquinto said.