North Andover police officer shot while being served restraining order identified as Kelsey Fitzsimmons
At a news conference Tuesday, Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker revealed more details about the shooting Monday night.
Three North Andover police officers, one of them a supervisor, went to Fitzsimmons's home on Phillips Brooks Road just after 6 p.m. to "serve a court appointed restraining order," Tucker said.
"Armed confrontation"
"When one of the officers was escorting Ms. Fitzsimmons during the service of the court order, an armed confrontation took place. As a result of that armed conformation, one of the responding officers discharged their weapon, which struck Ms. Fitzsimmons," Tucker told reporters Tuesday.
Fitzsimmons was shot once and was rushed to a hospital in Boston on a medical rescue helicopter. She was in stable condition as of Tuesday morning, the district attorney said.
"We don't know how long she'll be treated," Tucker said. He added that Fitzsimmons was on administrative leave and that the leave will now be extended. She's been with the North Andover police department for about a year and a half.
The officer who fired the shot has not been identified, but the district attorney said he's been with the department for more than 20 years.
"We're concerned for all the officers, on-duty and off-duty and we're just going to monitor and hopefully get some results," said North Andover Police Chief Charles Gray.
"Lots of things remain unanswered"
"There are lots of interviews to be done. There are lots of pieces to be put together. There is lots of things that remain unanswered," Tucker said.
"But for now, we want to make sure that the people of North Andover and across the Commonwealth know as much as we can give out at this time, being as transparent as we can. We also know that serving restraining orders, court-approved restraining orders are sometimes some of the most dangerous duties that police officers can cover, no matter who the object of that order is."
When asked if officers were going to take her service weapon during the incident, Tucker said, "The restraining order was a standard 209A filed by the plaintiff and served by the North Andover officers."
"Pursuant to the court order, one of the standard boxes to check is retrieval of any firearms in the home. That's standard operating," the district attorney said.
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