Published in the January 24, 2018 edition
LYNNFIELD — A 47-year-old man, formerly of Lynnfield, took his own life during a traffic stop Sunday afternoon on Main Street.
According to Essex District Attorney spokeswoman Carrie Kimball Monahan, police stopped a vehicle driven by Christopher Morris after receiving several 911 calls about an erratic driver on Main Street near the Sagamore Spring Golf Club around 5 p.m.
A Lynnfield police officer asked Morris for his driver’s license. Morris was suspected of being under the influence and when police asked him to step from the vehicle to take some field sobriety tests, he refused, instead using a gun he had in the car to take his own life.
Morris was rushed to Union Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
As part of protocol in unfortunate instances like this, the district attorney’s office sent out investigators who determined that neither of the two officers at the scene had discharged their weapons.
Morris, who currently had been living in Wakefield, formerly lived in Lynnfield, according to Monahan.
