Donald Passmore was lying in bed with a .22-caliber revolver and had country music playing when he was killed by two police officers who had initially been summoned to the 62-year-old\u2019s Connecticut home after a report he\u2019d shot himself.
The killing Monday angered and saddened Passmore\u2019s family and raised questions about whether officers could have done things differently. It came as many police departments nationwide have changed the way they respond to certain calls, including those involving mentally ill people \u2014 in response to outcries over police killings.
Police body camera videos showed part of what happened after officers arrived at Passmore\u2019s home in Wallingford, Connecticut. The man\u2019s girlfriend had called 911 shortly after 2:30 a.m. to report he had shot himself in the face in their bedroom.
The state inspector general\u2019s office, which investigates all police shootings in Connecticut, said the officers spoke to Passmore for about nine minutes.
The videos show Passmore telling officers Gordon McCaskill and Robert Bellucci to put their flashlights down and the officers yelling \u201cDo not touch the gun,\u201d \u201cGet your right hand up now\u201d and \u201cKeep your \u2026 hands where we can see them.\u201d
Seconds later there is a burst of about 10 gunshots.
The state inspector general\u2019s office said in a preliminary report that Passmore\u2019s revolver was found on the bed, but neither officer\u2019s video shows it. The videos also do not show the movement of Passmore\u2019s right arm. There was nothing in his left hand.
In the leadup to the shooting, the report said, Passmore told the officers to put down their flashlights and said \u201cI\u2019m telling you right now \u2026 one of you are going to go.\u201d
No information has been released on Passmore\u2019s mental health.
The report did not make any conclusions about the shooting, and the investigation is expected to take months.
Wallingford police declined to comment on the shooting and referred all questions to the inspector general\u2019s office. A department spokesperson, officer Alex Torres, said the department has a crisis negotiation team and has in the past used the mobile crisis service of a local mental health provider.
Passmore\u2019s sister, Susan Cone, sounded upset during a brief phone interview and declined to comment.
The house had belonged to Passmore\u2019s late mother. Court records show Passmore\u2019s mother, Pauline Passmore, died last year. Her mortgage lender has a pending foreclosure action against the home.
Michael Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven and a former state lawmaker, said the inspector general\u2019s office will determine whether the officers broke any laws.
Speaking generally, Lawlor said a debate and policy focus has emerged in recent years over whether the question about police shootings should be whether they were necessary instead of whether they were justified.
\u201cBased on the training, based on the situations, was it really necessary in this particular case to fire your weapon at the guy?\u201d said Lawlor, adding he had no opinion on shooting because few details have been released.
Several cities have experimented with having civilian emergency workers respond to mental health calls, rather than armed police.
Many police departments now train officers that the safest thing to do in some situations is to back off, contain and isolate a person experiencing a mental health crisis \u2014 even if they have a weapon \u2014 as long as it is likely they only pose a threat to themselves.
Some departments have changed their approach to certain calls after the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
There also have been calls for law enforcement to improve its responses to psychiatric crises after killings by police including the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, also in 2020. Prude was just out of a psychiatric hospital and running naked through snowy streets when he was suffocated by police who had been called to help him. He was Black, as was Floyd.
Passmore was white.
Monday\u2019s shooting was one of three violent confrontations in the past two weeks involving police in Connecticut. Also on Monday, a Hartford police officer shot and killed a 44-year-old man who pointed a handgun at the officer on a city street. On Oct. 5, a woman fired several shots inside the Bristol police department lobby and was arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n