Jeremiah Wooden, right, stands with defense attorney Joseph Collins in Salem District Court on Tuesday. He is charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting at a Salem, Massachusetts police officer.

SALEM, Mass. — It was a sound both familiar and bone-chilling to the officer, the distinctive sound of a gun being “racked” to fire. 

As Salem Police Patrolman Brian St. Pierre struggled to maintain control of Jeremiah “Jay” Wooden’s hands from behind him, he saw the gun — a gun officials say Wooden had no legal right to carry, one with an intentionally defaced serial number. 

Pinned between a pickup truck and a garage, St. Pierre was trying to figure out a way to get the gun from Wooden’s hand when he suddenly saw Wooden stretch out his arm and aim the gun at the officer’s leg. 

“Don’t do it,” St. Pierre told Wooden, as he moved his leg away. But as Wooden continued to struggle, St. Pierre lost his balance and fell. 

Suddenly, the gun in Wooden’s hands was pointed directly at the officer’s head.

“Please don’t shoot me,” prosecutor James Gubitose quoted the officer as telling Wooden. “Don’t shoot me.” 

But Wooden, standing just three or four feet away, pulled the trigger, police say. 

“Thankfully, it missed,” said Gubitose during Wooden’s arraignment Monday in Salem District Court. 

Prior to the shooting, St. Pierre and fellow officer Rafael Gonzalez were together on patrol in the area of Salem, just outside downtown. As they headed toward downtown Salem, they spotted a black SUV coming toward them in the opposite direction, the officers wrote in their reports.

They recognized the driver as Wooden, a man with whom they’d had prior interactions and whom they knew was wanted on warrants from two area district courts.

Linked to a local murder suspect, Wooden was pulled over by Gonzalez and St. Pierre and, shortly after, jumped from the vehicle and ran on foot as the two officers followed separately on foot and by patrol car.

St. Pierre, who chased Wooden on foot, was able to grab Wooden as he lost his balance and a struggle ensued, as St. Pierre reported.

During that struggle, the microphone from St. Pierre’s police radio came undone from the strap on the shoulder of his uniform shirt and dangled from his waist, leaving him unable to call for help. 

St. Pierre pinned Wooden to a pickup truck parked next to a garage in the driveway, but during the struggle, the two became wedged into a narrow space between the truck and a garage wall.

As the officer struggled to maintain control of Wooden’s hands, Wooden crouched lower and lower, eventually breaking his right hand from the officer’s grasp and, police say, grabbing the gun. 

As Wooden stood over St. Pierre with the gun pointed at his head, “I feared for my life,” St. Pierre wrote. 

After hearing the gun fired, St. Pierre, his body coursing with adrenaline, thought he’d been struck — at such close range, he figured he had to have been hit. 

“I yelled at him, ‘You shot me, you shot me, you (expletive).'” 

“You’ll be aight,” said Wooden, using street slang for “all right.” Then he demanded, “Give me your sidearm.” 

St. Pierre refused. 

Wooden, still pointing his gun at the officer, moved closer and reached toward St. Pierre’s holster and tugged on the officer’s gun. St. Pierre shielded the gun with his elbow. 

Then Wooden took off running through the backyard, toward the street. 

St. Pierre, finally able to reach his radio, called for help.

During a massive manhunt that followed, police found a black belt and a black pistol, both believed to be Wooden’s, near a home down the street. 

Both St. Pierre and Gonzalez were taken to a local hospital for evaluation. 

Wooden has since been ordered held without bail on charges that include armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery on a police officer, attempted assault and battery with a firearm, possessing a firearm while in commission of a felony and other firearms charges, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. 

As six rows filled by local police officers and St. Pierre and his parents watched from a gallery, Salem District Court Judge Matthew Machera granted the prosecutor’s request to deem Wooden, 22, a danger to the public. 

The judge pointed to the nature and circumstances of what happened Thursday as well as Wooden’s lengthy record, including convictions for sex offenses and five warrants, including two for failing to register with Malden police as a sex offender. 

Wooden and his attorney, Joseph Collins, did not contest the finding or ask for a full hearing. Collins said he expects that his client will be indicted by a grand jury before the next scheduled hearing in the case on May 19. 

Manganis writes for the Salem, Massachusetts News.