Newly released body camera video captures an officer-involved shooting on a stolen sailboat in Rhode Island this past summer.
In a social media video released Friday, Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy recounts how on August 26, officers boarded the Pathfinder sailboat after the Newport harbor master noticed it anchored offshore.
The harbormaster noticed the name of the vessel, which had been reported stolen out of New Jersey, had been scraped off.
The Harbormaster ferried four Newport police officers over to the boat around 9 a.m. to investigate.
The video shows a man, whom police identified as 27-year-old Brendan Norris, apparently readying to leave when officers pull up alongside the stolen sailboat.
Officers can be heard ordering Norris to stay on deck, but the man rushed below.
Duffy explained that officers could see Norris rummaging below deck.
Norris then fired a shot from inside the cabin, hitting one of the officers in the leg with debris.
Video shows one officer scrambling back to the harbormaster’s boat as officers open fire into the cabin below.
Officers found Norris unresponsive in the cabin with a gun next to him. Duffy said the man had a severe head injury and was pronounced deceased at the scene.
The officer with the leg injury was taken to Newport Hospital to be treated for his wound.
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