Via Law Officer by Staff
Raymond, New Hampshire: A Nottingham Police Department officer was shot and seriously wounded after responding to a reported domestic disturbance in Raymond, New Hampshire, where a man with an active felony warrant was firing a rifle at family members.
At approximately 1:30 p.m., Raymond police were dispatched to a residence on Ham Road after callers reported that Matthew J. Masse, 38, of Raymond, was shooting at family members with a long gun, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. When officers arrived and made contact, Masse opened fire, striking a Nottingham officer with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The officer was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
Masse then fled on foot into a dense wooded area, triggering a multi-agency response that New Hampshire State Police Major Brendan Davey described at a press conference as “all hands on deck.” State police, local departments, county sheriff’s deputies, and federal resources, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals, were deployed. A state police helicopter with thermal imaging capability was used to search the wooded area, which covered several hundred acres bounded by Ham Road, Nottingham Road, Route 27, and Blake Road in the town of Epping.
Raymond Police Chief Michael Labell told reporters that law enforcement had not been blindsided by Masse. A felony arrest warrant had been issued two days earlier following a separate incident, which authorities described as an attempted arson at a family residence. Chief Labell said his department had been working with other agencies to locate Masse in the 48 hours before the shooting and had followed several leads without success.
Around 10:06 p.m., officers located Masse in a wooded area and attempted to take him into custody. Masse fired at officers, and officers returned fire. When they approached his location, Masse was found dead. An autopsy completed the following week confirmed he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, with a shrapnel wound also present.
The wounded Nottingham officer was released from the hospital on Monday. His name has not been released.
Masse’s family told local media he had been struggling with severe mental health issues in the period leading up to the shooting. His brother described him as someone who had been fighting an internal battle for some time.
Field Lessons are offered strictly as general, industry-standard reminders drawn from common safety practices and typical policy considerations. They are not based on any inside knowledge of this specific incident, do not presume what actions were taken, and should not be interpreted as commentary on the decisions made at the scene.
- Domestic calls alone remain one of the most dangerous calls for law enforcement, and our research has placed these calls in a category that requires a higher tactical approach.
- Subjects presenting with simultaneous mental health crisis, criminal accountability, and armed capacity represent one of the highest-risk behavioral profiles in a law enforcement contact. Recognizing the convergence of those three factors before arrival is mandatory.
- While it may be believed that violence against law enforcement is a random event, our research reveals that in 94% of the officers who were attacked, the call details indicated a higher tactical response prior to the attack.
- Policy Makers must avoid the pressure to mandate de-escalation when a mental health crisis is present. While de-escalation may be appropriate in a situation absent of behavior cues tied to pending violence, we have found no evidence that de-escalation is effective in suspects that are displaying the sentinel cues indicative of pending violence. In fact, we find that in those cases, de-escalation actually escalated the threats.
Dr. Travis Yates has pioneered a behavioral risk framework to help officers and leaders identify, assess, and articulate risk in rapidly evolving, uncertain situations. Find out more about the FOCUS Behavioral Risk Framework.
Read in its entirety at lawofficer.com.
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