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'This Is A Nightmare': Family Of Utility Worker Killed In Waltham Alongside Officer Grieve Loss

Officials have identified the 36-year-old Cambridge man who was killed on Wednesday, Dec. 6, while working at a National Grid utility job site along with a 28-year Waltham police veteran in a hit-and-run crash. 

Roderick Jackson
Roderick Jackson Photo Credit: Family Photo
Waltham Police Officer Paul Tracey was killed Wednesday night, Dec. 6, in a traffic crash along with a utility worker. 

Waltham Police Officer Paul Tracey was killed Wednesday night, Dec. 6, in a traffic crash along with a utility worker. 

Photo Credit: Facebook/The Committee To Elect Paul Tracey

Roderick Jackson was one of three National Grid employees who were hit while working at a job site on Totten Pond Road Wednesday afternoon. The two other workers were not identified, but they remained hospitalized Thursday. 

Waltham Officer Paul Tracey, who was working traffic at the job site, was also killed when authorities said Peter Simon, 54, of Woodsville, New Hampshire, slammed into them and kept driving. 

Simon was arraigned on 10 charges in the fatal crash, the Middlesex District Attorney's Office said. He pleaded not guilty on Thursday, and a judge ordered him held without bail. 

After Simon's arraignment, Jackson's brother told reporters that the 36-year-old was a loving father and good friend.  

"He meant everything to me, he meant everything to everybody," his brother said. "The city of Cambridge knows who he is. When everybody forgets about him, we will remember. This is a nightmare that I'm living in. I woke up — what just happened? You get what I'm saying? I can't even explain this story to anybody.

"I just spoke to him before it happened," he added. "We were talking about going to the game, the Rose Bowl game. He was my everything."

Officer Tracey leaves behind two children and a wife, who serves as a student resource officer. 

Investigators believe Tracey was at the back of the work truck directing traffic when Simon, who was fleeing a previous hit-and-run in a stolen F-150, veered off the road and went between the National Grid vehicle and a backhoe. Jackson was likely getting something out of the work truck when he was struck, authorities said. 

Simon hit two more vehicles before he jumped out of the stolen pickup. A responding officer found him banging on the door of a nearby home, but when they approached Simon, he pulled a knife and stole their patrol car.; 

Simon crashed it soon after on Winter Street and tried to run away, but he was captured minutes later, the prosecutor said. 

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