NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — An off-duty North Andover police officer who was shot and wounded during an armed confrontation with police trying to serve a restraining order at her home earlier this summer has been indicted by a grand jury.
Kelsey Fitzsimmons, 28, was indicted for assault by means of a dangerous weapon by an Essex County grand jury on Monday, a spokesman for the Essex District Attorney’s Office confirmed to Boston 25 News.
An Essex Superior Court judge also denied Fitzsimmons’ second bail appeal, noting that the “court has not been presented with a satisfactory release plan,” according to the DA’s office.
Fitzsimmons was arraigned in early August from her hospital bed on charges of armed assault with intent to murder and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. She pleaded not guilty to all charges and was ordered held without bail on the grounds of dangerousness.
Fitzsimmons was shot by police once in the chest in the incident on Phillips Brooks Road around 6 p.m. on June 30, according to Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker and her attorney.
Three officers were carrying out a court-ordered restraining order at Fitzsimmons’ home when the shooting happened, prosecutors said. Fitzsimmons was the subject of the restraining order.
“When one of the officers was escorting Ms. Fitzsimmons during the service of the court order, an armed confrontation took place,” Tucker said after the shooting. “One of the standard boxes to check is the retrieval of any firearms in the home.”
The order, obtained by Fitzsimmons’ fiancée and the father of their four-month-old baby, came “by surprise” in an ex parte fashion, seeking to take the child away from her,” her attorney, Tim Bradl, said last month.
“I am in trouble and have a gunshot wound to my chest because in that awful, isolated moment, I no longer had the will to live,” Fitzsimmons said in her first public comment on the incident, adding that she was diagnosed with postpartum depression soon after giving birth to her son in February.
Fitzsimmons is next due to appear in court for a probable cause hearing on Aug. 28.
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