Man Suspected of Running Over Police Officer Declared Insane

A man who prosecutors say ran over a Manassas Park Police officer with a Buick has been declared insane, according to court documents.

 Robert Daniel Washington III was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He faced charges in connection with the injury of Manassas Park Police Officer Brian Sproule.

 Washington was charged with attempted murder of a police officer and malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer.

 in March to drop Washington’s two lesser charges — leaving the scene of an accident and drug possession.

Washington was indicted by a grand jury in May and was found not guilty on June 15, according to Virginia Circuit Court documents.

  while responding to an incident in the Brandy Station neighborhood of Manassas Park.

William Henry Hickey, a tow truck driver who was at the scene that morning, testified in March that he saw Sproule walked over to the driver's side of the white Buick that Washington was driving.

 “ … [Sproule] kept yelling, ‘Stop. Get out of the vehicle. Stop. Get out of the vehicle,’” Hickey told the court in March.

“Next thing I know, the car sped backward and hit a bunch of cars.”

Sproule went around to the passenger side of the vehicle and fired his gun. The suspect put his hands up in an “I give up” motion, Hickey said, according to court documents.

“His hands dropped and he was gone. He throwed the car in gear and ran over top of the officer,” Hickey said. “I watched the car go up in the air, twice. Front wheel, back wheel.”

It looked as if the suspect was going to put the car in reverse and run over Sproule again, but Hickey said he blocked the car in with his tow truck, jumped out and began cursing at the suspect and threatened to hit him with the pick axe he had in the truck.

 “I said, ‘You already ran over him, he’s down,’” Hickey said.

Washington spent a week in a Fairfax hospital for treatment of injuries he received after Sproule shot him.

Sproule was taken to the same hospital where he received 15 staples in his scalp.

Sproule testified in March that he has a few broken memories of the incident, but he does remember seeing the car moving toward him. 

Washington didn't testify during the prelimary hearing.