Postpartum, restraining order and shooting: What to know about Mass. police officer shot by colleague

Kelsey Fitzsimmons pulled the trigger, the gun clicked, but it never went off. That much is agreed on.

The direction that she pointed the gun, however, is a highly contested fact in her criminal case. On Monday, she was indicted in Essex Superior Court on a single count of assault with a dangerous weapon.

Fitzsimmons, a member of the North Andover Police Department currently on administrative leave, was shot in the chest by a fellow department officer who says she pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.

He shot her as she attempted to load the weapon after firing an empty round, officials have said.

The officer, Patrick Noonan, was one of three officers serving a restraining order obtained by Fitzsimmons’ fiancé in June.

The shooting left Fitzsimmons hospitalized for nearly two months, and a trail of court filings and court proceedings reveals a tale of a mother struggling with postpartum depression in the months after the birth of her first child that culminated with a violent episode on June 30.

In her telling, Fitzsimmons attempted to take her own life amid her mental health struggles and while police officers from her own department seized her gun and took custody of her infant. She also feared she would lose her job as a police officer.

Fitzsimmons spent weeks in the hospital after being shot and released a statement through her attorney.

“My firearm was NEVER pointed in any direction other than my temple. When I pulled the trigger, my gun did not fire,” she wrote in a statement last month. “As a police officer myself, I would never even think to intentionally hurt another police officer.”

Her lawyer, Timothy Bradl, said Fitzsimmons was in the “grips of postpartum depression” and receiving treatment leading up to the shooting, and challenged the version of events described by the authorities.

Here is a review of what we know:

Who is Kelsey Fitzsimmons?

Fitzsimmons, 28, joined the North Andover Police Department on Nov. 13, 2023.

She studied criminal justice at Fisher College and then law at the Massachusetts School of Law from 2020 to 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Before joining the North Andover Police Department, she worked for the Essex County Sheriff’s Department as a correctional officer from September 2021 to October 2023.

She spent a year at a law firm as a legal assistant from June 2020 to September 2021.

She also listed four months as an intern with the Methuen Police Department in the summer of 2019 on her LinkedIn profile.

Her certification to work in law enforcement was suspended by the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission last month.

The state’s police oversight board, known by the acronym POST, has decertified 60 officers since 2023, determining that they should be banned from carrying a badge and a gun in Massachusetts.

Why did her fiancé seek a restraining order?

A court-approved restraining order requested by her fiancé described an incident on June 28 — two days before the armed confrontation with police at her home.

“Kelsey Fitzsimmons is a danger to myself and our son, along with herself,” the restraining order states. “On Saturday night, June 28, Kelsey struck me with a closed fist 3X to my face. I was scared she would not stop.”

The fiancé’s brother and sister were in the next room and when they came in, Fitzsimmons acted like she didn’t do anything, the document states.

“I feared for my life,” the fiancé wrote.

At the end of the restraining order, he wrote that Fitzsimmons had threatened to take the baby “far, far away for a long, long time.”

“I fear that she will kill the baby at any moment,” the fiancé wrote.

On June 30, Fitzsimmons’ fiancé told her to meet at a park to discuss their future, Fitzsimmons’ attorney said during a court hearing earlier this month.

“And she was elated that they were going to work on their problems and he didn’t show,” Bradl said. “She waited for him for three hours with their baby, and turns out he was here getting a restraining order against her that is full of lies.”

What authorities said about ‘armed confrontation’

In the wake of the shooting, Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker described the incident as an “armed confrontation” that happened while an officer was “escorting” Fitzsimmons during the delivery of a restraining order.

A police report, authored by Massachusetts State Police Sgt. David Strong and filed in court, described the investigation that led to Fitzsimmons’ charges.

Three police officers arrived at about 6:10 p.m. at Fitzsimmons’ home on Phillips Brook Road in North Andover to serve a restraining order.

The order gave custody of the couple’s then-4-month-old son to Fitzsimmons’ fiancé and required her to turn over her firearms.

About 10 minutes after the police arrived at her home, they called the fiancé to come and gather his belongings and pick up the child.

Fitzsimmons went through the house to collect items for the baby in anticipation of the fiancé’s arrival. After going through the first floor, the police escorted her to the second floor.

When the fiancé arrived, Fitzsimmons asked to be kept separated from him, leaving her alone with one of the officers.

A lieutenant who responded to the home told Strong in an interview that he heard the officer yell, “Kelsey don’t do it, Kelsey don’t do it,” followed by two gunshots. The lieutenant was on the first floor of the home with the fiancé and Fitzsimmons’ mother. After hearing the gunshots, officers raced to provide first aid to Fitzsimmons and called an ambulance.

In a separate interview, one of the responding officers told Strong that Fitzsimmons claimed all her guns were locked in a safe in the basement. As he walked toward the basement, he heard the other officer scream “Kelsey” and heard two gunshots ring out.

The officer immediately ran upstairs and found Fitzsimmons lying on the ground. When he asked what happened, the officer, Patrick Noonan, said Fitzsimmons pointed a gun at him, pulled the trigger, then racked a round of ammunition.

Noonan recounted Fitzsimmons kneeling on the ground in her bedroom, packing clothing and books for her son. While standing in the doorway, he saw Fitzsimmons turn toward him, lunge for an area behind the door, then reappeared, pointing a gun at him, according to the police report.

Fitzsimmons pulled the trigger and Noonan heard the gun click, but no round fired. She began to stand up, and Noonan took his gun out of its holster. Fitzsimmons started to rack the gun to chamber a round, and Noonan yelled at her to drop the gun, according to the police report.

“Officer Noonan stated that at this point he knew she was trying to kill him,” the report reads.

Noonan fired a shot, but missed Fitzsimmons as she continued trying to chamber a round, the report states. Noonan fired again, hitting Fitzsimmons.

A fourth officer arrived at the scene after the shooting and removed the magazine from Fitzsimmons’ gun. He reported there was a round of ammunition inside.

Police obtained a search warrant for the home and found four semi-automatic guns.

She pleaded not guilty on Aug. 7 in Lawrence District Court on charges of armed assault to murder and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon.

A judge ordered her held without the right to bail under the state’s dangerousness law. After several weeks of hospitalization, she was transferred to a Western Massachusetts jail, court records show. Her attempt to be released under special conditions was denied by a superior court judge earlier this month.

Fitzsimmons speaks out

Fitzsimmons’ attorney released a lengthy public statement weeks after the shooting on her behalf.

She described being diagnosed with postpartum depression following the birth of her son and how she was receiving treatment at the time of the incident.

She said her fiancé turned his back on her and is now “legally bullying me to get what [he] want[s], slandering my character, and using my diagnosis against me to make me seem like I am a monster.“

“The deep love I have for my baby boy sustains me and keeps me strong,” the statement reads. “I would never put that angel of a child in harm’s way. My job as his momma is to protect him and that is what I have always done and will continue to do for the rest of my life.”

On June 30, Fitzsimmons said she was surprised to see three of her colleagues at her front door. She packed bags with baby food, clothes and diapers and handed her son off to a fellow officer.

It was in that moment, she said, that she attempted suicide in her bedroom.

Fitzsimmons said her mental health issues could be traced back to when she and Noonan responded to the scene of a murder-suicide in North Andover, where a mother fatally stabbed her 9-month-old baby and took her own life last year.

At the time, Fitzsimmons was 20 weeks pregnant.

“As a ‘rookie’ police officer, this was devastating to me,” the statement reads.

Following her diagnosis, Fitzsimmons said, she was “failed by so many.”

“I know the truth will prevail,” her statement concluded.

Fitzsimmons denies pointing gun at officer

A health expert hired by Fitzsimmons’ defense evaluated her, and he wrote in a report shared in court: “Ms. Fitzsimmons reveals herself as a deeply caring mother who, under an unimaginable confluence of stressors, experienced an acute transient psychological crisis.”

“The keyword for the court here in this hearing is transient,” Bradl said. “She has been in the grips of postpartum depression, which she has been trying to get help with. She, in the space of a 30-second conversation, she’s lost her marriage, her career, and her baby … So that’s the context of the incident.”

Bradl also referenced a mental health episode that happened at the couple’s home on March 9.

In court documents filed separately from the criminal case, attorney Peter Kelley wrote that police and EMT were called to the couple’s home and that she was “emotional, crying and seeking assistance.”

Kelley noted that no homicidal or suicidal statements were made and that it happened three weeks after the birth of her child. She was then involuntarily committed to Lawrence General Hospital for about 12 hours.

Kelley had filed the court documents in a petition to reinstate her gun license after being hospitalized. Fitzsimmons sued her department’s police chief in May to regain her gun license.

By June 18, she had been cleared to return to duty by a medical professional and her gun license reinstated.

Bradl said Fitzsimmons was due to return to the police department on July 4 after being on maternity leave and then placed on paid administrative leave pending the results of a “fitness for duty” evaluation on April 30.

“She was fine and ready to go,” Bradl said.

Bradl also said at a court hearing earlier this month that Fitzsimmons denied telling police that all of the guns in the home were in the basement, adding that she also denies pointing the gun at her fellow police officer.

“The first thing she said to me when I met her, when I raised this issue, this extremely shocking allegation that she’d point a gun at this guy, she said, ‘I would never point a gun at a fellow law enforcement officer,’” Bradl said.

The police did not wear body cameras, as Bradl noted, and he said there were no police officers who witnessed the incident to corroborate the events.

What’s next?

Fitzsimmons is scheduled for a hearing on Thursday, Aug. 28 in Essex Superior Court, her first appearance after being indicted.

A second attempt by Fitzsimmons to be released on bail under special conditions was denied by a superior court judge on Monday.