QUINCY, Mass. -- Police say a Weymouth woman tried to dodge a detour Tuesday morning because she was late for work but she never made it to work Tuesday. Instead, Anna Gitlin was arrested after her car hit a veteran police officer, Newscenter 5's David Boeri reported.

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Driver Arraigned In Court

In court Tuesday, her lawyer portrayed a person with a completely unblemished record, a record of accomplishment as a student at Needham High School and in college, a Russian immigrant and a daughter of a piano teacher. But on Tuesday, she was a defendant charged with the attempted murder of a police officer.

Maybe Gitlin, 25, was the day's first causality of the heat. With the poise of a Russian ballerina, the immigrant from St. Petersburg never looked to the right or to the left in the courtroom, and when she saw a policeman standing in her way Tuesday morning she allegedly never stopped.

"I figured she was crazy," said one alleged witness.

On her way to work Tuesday morning, the software engineer with no record got jammed up with the law because of a traffic jam.

There had been an accident, and the road was closed. Someone had been hospitalized, but according to witnesses and police, that wasn't good enough for Gitlin.

"She was screaming at the cop because she wanted to go down there," one alleged witness said.

"This defendant responded to the police officer and I quote, she yelled, 'I don't care who the f*** dies, I'm more important.' She repeated this statement again to the officer," the prosecutor said in court.

Never a good conversation starter with police, that allegedly began Gitlin's journey to the Quincy Court House instead of to work.

"Eventually he asked for a license and registration and he reached into the car to get it. At which time, she rolled the window up on his arm," the prosecutor continued.

The day was still early but the temperature was rising and Gitlin, with the unblemished record, allegedly started pushing the officer with her car and, several skirmishes later, the incident that lead to the biggest charge of all.

"She just drove and then saw it was the cop on the hood," said an alleged witness.

The officer allegedly continued to try to stop her and she drove off, knocking the officer onto the hood of her car, and began to accelerate.

Her lawyer sneered at the attempted murder charges in court Tuesday afternoon, saying that charge will go away and that she was over charged.

The officer was treated and released. In fact, he filed his police report after leaving the hospital.

Bail was set at $5,000, and Gitlin will be back in court in August.