The
HONOR
of the
F ORCE
State trooper-turned-
attorney David J. MacMain
now serves and protects
his former comrades
BY MICHAEL Y. PARK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUIGI CIUFFETELLI
In November 1986, Pennsylvania State Trooper David J.
MacMain was on duty on the rural outskirts of the town
of Chatham when he noticed a Mustang zoom by above
the speed limit. He hit his siren and attempted to pull
the car over. It seemed like a routine stop. MacMain fully
expected to be home that evening in time for his 23rd
birthday dinner with his wife, Lisa.
Then the Mustang roared off. The birthday dinner would have
to wait.
MacMain slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor and gave
chase in a high-speed pursuit. After about 10 minutes, the Mustang
screeched to a stop by a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. Four
men leapt out and disappeared among the cornstalks.
As one of the few state troopers spread thinly across the
mostly rural Chester County, MacMain had been patrolling
without a partner. The isolation of the area meant he was out
of radio contact with the nearest station. Nobody knew where
he was or what had happened. He had no idea if the men were
armed or if they might be lying in wait just beyond that first row
of cornstalks.
For just a moment, he hesitated. That’s when he noticed that
one of the men had gotten caught in the door trying to escape
the Mustang. MacMain pounced on him, handcuffed him and
got him into the back of his patrol car. He re-established radio
contact and took his suspect in.
As it turned out, the man MacMain had nabbed was part of a
ring of car thieves that had been stealing cars from Delaware and
