Authorities have released the name of the man shot and killed by police Tuesday in Newton, Massachusetts, along with the 911 call and police radio transmission from the incident.
Michael Conlon, 28, of Newton, was shot after he allegedly entered a candy store with a knife.
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The incident began when the owner of Indulge! candy store on Lincoln Street called 911 to report a man with a knife around 1:45 p.m., Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said. The man, since identified as Conlon, lived above the store on the second floor.
"Can you please put the knife away? I know you're a nice kid," the store owner can be heard saying on the 911 call released by the district attorney's office. "If you're not trying to scare me, why would you come in with a knife?"
Two Newton police officers arrived at the store, and Conlon fled upstairs to the third floor, according to Ryan. The officers gave chase and called for backup — they arrived in the form of more Newton police officers as well as two Massachusetts state troopers who were stationed nearby.
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Ryan said the preliminary investigation suggested that after Conlon refused verbal commands from police to drop the knife, Newton police tried to subdue him with a less-than-lethal shotgun, then a state trooper used a Taser, without success.
Two Newton police officers fired on Conlon around 2:11 p.m. after he allegedly advanced on them while holding the knife "in a threatening manner," Ryan said. He was taken to Newton Wellesley Hospital, where he later died. The cause and manner of his death are still pending.
The investigation into the shooting will attempt to determine what Conlon was doing with a knife in the store in the first place — a dispatcher inferred from the 911 call that it was a robbery, but Ryan said whether that was the case remains under investigation.
"Sixteen Lincoln Street, a possible armed robbery. They hung up," a dispatcher can be heard saying in the police radio transmission released by the district attorney's office.
The Newton officers involved in the incident have been placed on temporary paid administrative leave.
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said that police will fully cooperate with Ryan's office as it investigates, and said the city's hearts go out to Conlon's family.
"It is always a tragedy when there is a loss of life here in Newton, and we feel that tragedy deeply," Fuller said.
The candy store is one of many small shops on a stretch of Lincoln Street near Walnut Street.
"He's a tenant here, he's been in the candy store a hundred times, so it wasn't abnormal," the building's property manager, Jeff Carter, said of Conlon.
The candy store owner was not hurt, Carter said, which Ryan confirmed. She said the owner "kept a cool head in a difficult situation," and police were able to gain information because she kept her call to 911 open while the situation developed.
A rally calling for additional mental health resources was scheduled to be held in Newton on Wednesday afternoon.
Newton City Councilor Bill Humphrey said the rally at 4 p.m. next to the police station would call for "funded, accessible alternatives for mental health crisis response."
In a Twitter thread, Humphrey called the fatal shooting avoidable, saying, "Police did not need to use deadly force, and they were not the appropriate people to resolve it."
