Police justified in shooting man on Piscataqua River Bridge, Maine AG rules
KITTERY, Maine (WGME) -- Maine Attorney General's Aaron Frey has ruled troopers were justified when they shot a man on the Piscataqua River Bridge, which connects Maine and New Hampshire in August 2024.
Police say the incident started around 2:07 a.m. on August 29, 2024, when a man later identified as 37-year-old Trent Weston called 911 and said he got into a fight with his wife at a home in Troy, New Hampshire and that she was dead.
New Hampshire State Police then went to the home in Troy, near Keene, and found the suspect’s wife, 37-year-old Brittany Weston, dead. Officials say she died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Then, at 2:30 a.m., police tracked his phone to Kittery and located Weston in the southbound lane of I-95 in the middle of the bridge, just on the Maine side.
Investigators said they tried negotiating with Weston to get him to surrender, but they were unsuccessful.
After a lengthy negotiation process, police said Weston got out of his vehicle and was holding a gun.
In the video released by the AG, which appears to be from a traffic camera, Weston can be seen sitting on the edge of the bridge.
About eight seconds into the video, Weston can be seen raising his right arm before he's shot multiple times by Maine State Police Trooper Craig Nilsen and two New Hampshire State Police troopers. Weston then fell 135 feet into the river below.
After Weston's body was recovered from the river by the Coast Guard, police said they discovered the body of Weston's 8-year-old son, Benson, in the back seat of his car.
"Law enforcement officers on scene located an 8-year-old child fatally shot in the back seat of the vehicle,” Col. William Ross with the Maine State Police said in August 2024. "The child’s death is not associated with the police officer’s use of deadly force.”
According to Frey, the Maine Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined that Weston shot himself in the head before being shot multiple times by the troopers. Frey says video from a camera on the bridge shows that Weston shot himself in the head before being hit by police gunfire.
According to Frey, the troopers who shot Weston reasonably believed he was posing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death when they shot him.
“All facts and circumstances point to the conclusion that the three officers reasonably believed they were acting in defense of themselves and other officers at the time they used deadly force,” Frey said in a report.
