Newton

Man With Knife Fatally Shot by Police in Newton After De-Escalation Fails, DA Says

Newton police tried to subdue the man with a less-than-lethal shotgun, then a Massachusetts state trooper used a Taser, the local district attorney said, but the attempts were unsuccessful

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Police shot and killed a man above a candy store he'd entered with a knife Tuesday in the Newton Highlands neighborhood of Newton, Massachusetts, prosecutors said.

Several police officers were hospitalized after the incident, but none had serious injuries, District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference Tuesday evening.

The incident began when the owner of a candy store on Lincoln Street called 911 to report a man with a knife around 1:45 p.m., Ryan said. The man, who was 28 but has not yet been identified, lived above the store.

Two Newton police officers arrived at the store, and the man with the knife fled upstairs, 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.

Police shot a man who was armed with a knife when he entered a candy shop in his building in the Newton Highlands, then fled from officers who were called to help, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference, adding that officers tried less-than-lethal methods of subduing him.

Newton police tried to subdue the man with a less-than-lethal shotgun, then a trooper used a Taser, Ryan said, but the attempts were unsuccessful.

Ryan said that two officers from Newton shot the man about 2:13 p.m., according to Ryan, which is roughly 30 minutes after the incident began. The man was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.

He will be identified after his family is notified, Ryan said. The investigation into the shooting, still in its early stages, will attempt to determine what the man 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.

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 the family of the man who was shot.

"It is always a tragedy when there is a loss of life here in Newton, and we feel that tragedy deeply," Fuller said.

A person was shot in a police confrontation in Newton Highlands, authorities say.

The candy store, called Indulge, has a purple façade and 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 the man who was shot.

The candy store owner was not hurt, Carter said, and 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.

The six gunshots that the owner of a nearby business, Fernando Fierimonte, heard made a sound that "was very distinct," he said.

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