New Hampshire attorney general says fatal killing of Manchester man by police was legally justified

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Four Manchester police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 26-year-old man outside his fiancée’s apartment building last year were justified in their use of deadly force, the attorney general’s office said Wednesday.

Alex Naone died May 26, 2023, after being shot seven times in the arms, chest, abdomen and back, according to the attorney general’s report.

According to investigators, Naone had an on-and-off relationship with his fiancée and had been arrested two weeks earlier for throwing cans of beer at the windows. On the night May 25, they argued and he left, but returned around 2 a.m., intoxicated and holding a gun to his head in front of their four-year-old daughter, she told police.

Outside the apartment, Naone initially complied with officers’ orders to put down the gun, but later picked it back up, racked it and raised it toward his head. Officers Jeffrey Belleza, Robert Bifsha, Stephen Choate and Patrick Ruddell fired their weapons.

The report concludes that Naone’s conduct could reasonably interpreted as defiant and threatening.

“Although Mr. Naone had not expressed an intent to harm any other occupants, it was objectively reasonable to believe that his reckless discharing of that gun created the risk of death or serious bodily injury to nearby occupants,” the report states.