N.j. State Trooper Is Shot After Stopping Car; 3 Held

A 25-year-old New Jersey state trooper was shot and critically wounded along the New Jersey Turnpike in Gloucester County yesterday afternoon when he stopped a Pontiac Bonneville occupied by three "heavy-duty drug dealers," said the state police superintendent, Col. Clinton Pagano.

The trooper, Anthony DiSalvatore of Atco, a two-year veteran stationed at the Moorestown barracks, was in critical but stable condition last night in the trauma unit at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center.

Two of the three suspects, Stanley Rogers, 19, and James Arington, 20, both of Annapolis, Md., drove off in the officer's patrol car in East Greenwich Township, ran the tollbooth at Exit 2 and later were arrested in Franklin Township, Pagano said. The third suspect, Daniel Rogers, 22, also of Annapolis, was arrested in Mantua Township. He is the uncle of Stanley Rogers.

Pagano said that DiSalvatore stopped the suspects' car, which had New York tags, shortly after 4:30 p.m. in East Greenwich Township for a traffic violation. Police later recovered a semiautomatic handgun in a field about a half-mile from the shooting scene and a machine gun from one of the suspects.

Last night, police were preparing a search warrant for the Pontiac Bonneville. Pagano said police received information from one of the suspects that they "were en route from New York back to Annapolis with a shipment of narcotics to be distributed."

DiSalvatore was shot five times - in the abdomen, chest, hand and twice in one of his legs. He was rushed by helicopter to Cooper Hospital, where he underwent surgery, according to Anthony Mure, a trauma physician.

Mure said that DiSalvatore suffered "major wounds" in his chest and abdomen. Asked whether the wounds were life-threatening, he replied, "Yes." Mure said that doctors had controlled the bleeding but that a bullet had pierced the trooper's colon and liver.

Additional gunshot wounds in DiSalvatore's hand, chest and leg are being evaluated, hospital officials said. "He's doing well, but the next 24 hours will be critical," said a hospital spokeswoman.

According to Pagano, Arington was driving the car with a revoked driver's license. Just before pulling over the suspects' car, the trooper had radioed that he was stopping the vehicle, which was heading south, about two miles north of Exit 2.