FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) — A man shot and killed by a police officer in Fall River last month was armed with a knife and tried to stab another officer in the head and neck area, investigators said.
The report released Wednesday by Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn III’s office into the Nov. 22 shooting of Anthony Harden, 30, concluded that police were justified in opening fire.
The use of force was “consistent with the law of self-defense and/or the defense of others,” the report said, and as a result there is no basis to conclude that either officer committed a crime.
The officers — one male and one female — went to Harden’s home to investigate reports that he had assaulted his girlfriend two days earlier.
When they tried to arrest him, he “suddenly and violently attacked the male officer with a knife,” according to the report. The female officer then shot Harden twice in his left side, the report said. The names of the officers were not included.
Harden’s brother, Eric Mack, told the The Herald News there are inconsistencies in where on his body Harden was shot.
“It said he was shot in his left upper chest, and that is completely inconsistent with their first story, where in a search warrant it said he was shot in the oblique and lower abdomen,” Mack said.
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