"Chief killed, 4 officers hurt in N.H.; Suspect barricaded after drug raid brings burst of gunfire" by David Abel, Travis Andersen, and Zachary T. Sampson | Globe staff | Globe Correspondent, April 13, 2012
GREENLAND, N.H. - The police chief of this small, close-knit town was killed and four other officers were shot Thursday night when a drug raid turned deadly, state and town officials said.
New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney said the officers arrived at the home on Post Road in this town of 3,500 residents near Portsmouth to conduct a drug investigation at about 6 p.m., when the suspect opened fire from inside. The alleged gunman and a woman were barricaded in the home for hours after the shooting, Delaney said.
Killed in the shootings was Police Chief Michael Maloney, 48, who was one week from his retirement after 12 years on the force, said Town Administrator Karen Anderson.
Injured in the shootings were Detective Gregory Turner, 32, a six-year-veteran of the Dover police, who was treated and released from Portsmouth Regional Hospital for a gunshot wound to the shoulder; Officer Eric Kulberg, 31, a seven-year veteran of the University of New Hampshire police, treated and released for a single gunshot wound to the arm; Officer Scott Kukesh, 33, a 10-year veteran of the Newmarket police, who was in intensive care and was going into surgery with a gunshot wound to his chest; and Officer Jeremiah Murphy, 34, a seven-year veteran of the Rochester police, who was in intensive care after surgery.
Delaney said authorities were trying to negotiate with the suspect to surrender early Friday morning. Police evacuated residents within a half-mile of the house, and it appeared from live television coverage that the FBI was assisting local police and a SWAT team.
Delaney declined to provide additional information, other than to say that the four officers were being treated at a local hospital for gunshot wounds. He would not name the suspect and offered condolences to the family of Maloney.
“This is a tragic incident, and my thoughts and prayers are with the officers involved and their families,’’ New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, said in a statement. A hearse draped in an American flag was seen leaving Portsmouth Regional Hospital shortly after 10 p.m.
Lynch went to a command center in Concord to monitor the situation with other state emergency management officials, his office said.
The shooting began when police from several local and state departments responded to the area, and the first emergency call for an “officer-involved shooting’’ came in at about 6:30 p.m., according to local reports....
John Penacho, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, told reporters the town is reeling from the episode.
A neighbor who lived close to the scene and did not want his name published said police blanketed the area Thursday night as residents sought shelter indoors and lit their yards with outdoor spotlights.
When the first cruisers reached the scene Thursday evening, the man said he did not suspect anything unusual was happening.
“Actually, I looked out my window, I saw a couple of cruisers up on Post Road, and I thought someone was speeding and they pulled someone over,’’ he said when reached by phone.
He then received a call from his daughter who told him about the shooter. He said he called Greenland police, who confirmed they were handling the situation and told him to stay in his house.
“We never expected anything like this in Greenland,’’ he said of the town that was founded in 1721.
The squat, white house at 517 Post Road was apparently well known to police.
In 2010, officers went to the home to confiscate guns from Cullen Mutrie, 29, after he was arrested for domestic assault, according to the local website, Seacoastonline.com. The website cited police documents that said the officers believed Mutrie usually carried a gun and had more in his house and car. Police allegedly found liquid and powder steroids, the website said.
Three years earlier, Mutrie pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor assault charges after he was involved in a fight at the Portsmouth Gas Light Co., the website reported. Later, he reportedly withdrew his pleas, because he did not want a conviction to affect his chances of becoming a firefighter. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, seacostonline.com reported....
The shooting comes as the number of police officers killed across the country has spiked in recent years. There were 72 officers killed in 2011, a 25 percent increase from the previous year and a 75 percent increase from 2008, according to the FBI, the New York Times reported this week.
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"Alleged shooter had lengthy record" by Eric Moskowitz, Maria Cramer and Katheleen Conti | Globe Staff, April 13, 2012
GREENLAND, N.H. - The hulking figure who authorities say opened fire from his home on a drug task force, killing the town’s police chief and wounding officers from four departments, was out on bail awaiting trial on charges of steroid possession and assault.
Officers had reason to believe that Cullen Mutrie could be armed and dangerous when they descended upon his home in this rural town outside Portsmouth Thursday evening to serve him with a search warrant.
That visit went fatally awry when Mutrie allegedly began shooting before police could get inside, striking four task force members, as well as the chief of Greenland’s small department, New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney said.
Police Chief Michael Maloney, 48, was days from retirement when he was killed by a gunshot to the head.
In a press conference, the attorney general offered scant details on the firefight that erupted on normally sleepy Post Road, declining to answer questions....
After the gunfire subsided, police negotiators made brief contact with Mutrie before a long stretch of quiet, prompting them to send a camera-equipped robot into Mutrie’s 1940s farmhouse early Friday. That led to the 2 a.m. discovery of Mutrie and a female companion, dead in what Delaney said was a murder-suicide or a double suicide; their autopsies will probably be conducted Saturday.
An aunt, Sheila Mutrie, said the family was deeply pained. “We’re so very, very sorry about what has happened, to the police and everyone else,’’ she said in a phone interview, adding that she had seen no signs of trouble with the nephew who often helped her negotiate stairs and use her wheelchair.
“He was very dear to me,’’ she said. “We couldn’t believe it when we heard.’’
Mutrie’s mother, Beverly, still lives in Hampton Falls, where she is well regarded for her civic involvement. She owns a copy store in neighboring Hampton that she ran with Mutrie’s father, Charles, who died two years ago at age 69. The father purchased the home where his son had lived since 2006.
Richard McDermott, chairman of the Hampton Falls Board of Selectmen, said Mutrie seemed deeply affected by his father’s death, though he could not fathom what led him to snap.
Beverly Mutrie, a tall woman with silver hair and youthful blue eyes, went to work Friday at the copy shop, which shares a wall with a Western outfitter on a busy road flanked by local businesses and national chains. Friends and customers trickled in, offering condolences and support.
In a brief interview, she said she wished she could go back and change things with her son. She had not considered closing the shop and sequestering herself, she said, but “to tell you the truth, I wish it would all go away.’’
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Mutrie, who stood 6 feet 3 inches, weighed 260 pounds, and was two weeks shy of his 30th birthday, was a former volunteer firefighter with a smattering of police encounters, including a 2006 arrest in Portsmouth for punching a bouncer in the head and a 2010 arrest after Greenland police responded to a call about a dispute at his home.
When officers arrived on July 24, 2010, Mutrie’s then-girlfriend said she wanted a restraining order issued and told them that Mutrie kept at least five guns stashed in his home, in his car, and on his body, including one in the storage chest of his living room coffee table, according to a report filed by officer Wayne M. Young.
Inside, Young reportedly lifted the table’s lid and found a cache of vials containing powders and liquid labeled with the names of anabolic steroids, along with a scale. Returning with a warrant, police found guns and ammunition and confiscated the substances, which the state crime lab later confirmed to be anabolic steroids. Mutrie agreed to turn his guns over to police, according to Young.
Mutrie was found guilty of assault at Portsmouth District Court and given a suspended sentence. He was also ordered to submit to an anger-management evaluation, comply with any prescribed treatment, and avoid contact with the woman....
Delaney would not say what police were looking for when the task force sought to search Mutrie’s home this week. The task force, one of four such regional teams under Delaney’s auspices, uses federal grants to train and employ local, county, and state officers, as well as investigators from the attorney general’s office....
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Related: Michael Maloney recalled for kindness, love of his work
Autopsy shows police shooting suspect killed self
Shootings shatter N.H. town’s tranquility
Also see: A storm of gunfire during morning rush in Chicopee
