News Release
For further information please contact: Cpl. Doug Alexander (816) 622-0800
A Missouri state trooper was killed in a traffic crash today, May 22, 2003, at approximately 6:59 a.m. The crash occurred on the right-hand shoulder of eastbound Interstate 70 near the 47-mile marker.
Trooper Micheal L. Newton, 25, had stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation at approximately 6:54 a.m. Trooper Newton, and the driver of the vehicle he had stopped, were sitting in the patrol vehicle. At approximately 6:59 a.m. Troop A radio began receiving phone calls about a traffic crash at that location. An eastbound pickup pulling a flatbed trailer traveled onto the shoulder and struck the rear of Trooper Newton's patrol car. The impact of the crash forced Trooper Newton's patrol car into the rear of the vehicle he had stopped. The patrol car burst into flames.
Trooper Newton was killed inside his patrol car. The passenger was pulled from the patrol car through the passenger window by witnesses at the scene.
The passenger was transported by air ambulance to the University of Missouri Medical Center in Columbia with third degree burns covering 40 percent of his body. The driver of the pickup was transported to a hospital in Lexington, MO, by ambulance for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.
Trooper Newton joined the Patrol on January 1, 2001, and was commissioned on July 21, 2001. He was a member of the 78th Recruit Class. He was assigned to Troop A, Zone 9, Lafayette County upon graduation from the Patrol's Law Enforcement Academy. He is a native of Newburg, MO, and is survived by his wife and two sons. The investigation continues by the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Major Crash Investigation Unit.
Second trooper to die, first on in NY couple months back.
