# Man Shot, Killed After Police Confrontation



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*Officers Encountered Armed Man, Police Say*

POSTED: 8:45 am EDT October 27, 2006

*NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- *A 38-year-old man was killed in a police shooting in New Bedford. 
According to a police statement, two officers encountered an armed man at an apartment complex on Thomas Street at about 7:30 Thursday night. At some point, shots were fired and the suspect was hit. 
The man was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His name has not been released.

Police said the apartment complex has been a recent trouble spot for police, with 15 calls in the last six weeks alone. Most of those calls were for domestic or other types of disturbances.

Thursday's shooting is being investigated by state police assigned to the Bristol District Attorney's office.

Authorities said they expect more information to be released Friday.

_Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed._​


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*Dont you just love the headline.*

*Police gun down city man *

_*Officers say they fired after victim pulled fake handgun *_
_*By ROB MARGETTA, Standard-Times staff writer *_










NEW BEDFORD - Two police officers shot and killed 38-year-old Lamont S. Cruz during a confrontation at a Thomas Street apartment house Thursday night after he pulled a "replica handgun" from the waistband of his pants, Police Chief Ronald Teachman said yesterday.
The chief said police had identified the house at 60 Thomas St. as a "problem property" after numerous busts there for drug possession and other offenses. Officers Arthur Hegarty and Justin Kagan made a point of stopping by the apartment house whenever possible, Chief Teachman said.
At about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, they did so again on their way to dinner, encountering people on the house's front stairs and doorway and making their way into a first-floor hallway.
"While they were in that apartment house, they encountered Lamont Cruz," Chief Teachman said. "Lamont identified himself as Alberto Cruz. During that initial inquiry, there was a struggle and Lamont pulled a gun from his waistband. At some point, Lamont Cruz was shot by police."
He was treated at the scene, then taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was later declared dead.
The chief said he did not know if Mr. Cruz, of 33 Sycamore St., pointed the weapon - later identified as a realistic-looking air or gas gun capable of firing pellet-like projectiles - at Officers Hegarty and Kagan, or if he fired it. He also said he did not know how the struggle started, if the officers ordered Mr. Lamont to stand down, or if both patrolmen discharged their weapons. He said Mr. Cruz was struck twice, but the chief didn't say how many shots were fired.
"Whatever took place in that encounter is under investigation," he said.
No drugs were found after the shooting, the chief said, but he added, "Given the history of that house, it's more likely than not when you walk in you may make that discovery."
Officers Hegarty and Kagan were taken off patrol and put on administrative duty, in accordance with department policy, and the police have launched an internal investigation. Chief Teachman said he isn't taking a stance about whether the officers used appropriate force.
"I'm not making any statement about justification at this time," he said.
State police from the Bristol County District Attorney's Office are conducting a separate investigation.
Chief Teachman spent much of a press conference yesterday discussing police dealings at the house at 60 Thomas St. and with Mr. Cruz and outlining the difficulties of indentifying a gun replica from the genuine article.
The gun confiscated on Thomas Street has been turned over to state police, but the chief had a collection of similar air guns on display, along with almost identical real firearms.
"Which one's real, which one's a replica?" Police spokesman Capt. Richard Spirlet said, holding a pistol in each hand - one a department-issue semiautomatic and the other a replica, although they both looked real.
Chief Teachman emphasized that police have responded to 60 Thomas St. 15 times in the past six weeks. Most of the incidents were drug-related, the chief said. Officers have also sought two Level 3 sex offenders at the address, and broken up a domestic dispute over crack-cocaine, he said.
Officers Kagan and Hegarty first began checking the property in April. Since then, the chief said, the two have arrested a person leaving who was carrying a gun and crack, arrested two men for charges, including assault, and confiscated drug paraphernalia.
"They were proactively checking on a problem property, which is just what I've been asking of our patrol division officers," he said.
Officer Kagan joined the police cadet program in 2001. Officer Hegarty joined in 2003. Both became officers in August of 2004.
Officer Hegarty is the son of New Bedford police Deputy Chief Kevin Hegarty. The internal affairs investigation that police are launching comes under the direction of Deputy Chief David A. Provencher. Deputy Chief Hegarty will have no role in it, Chief Teachman said.
Chief Teachman said police were familiar with Mr. Cruz, too.
In 1992, he said, Mr. Cruz was sentenced to 15-20 years in prison for charges including vehicular manslaughter, armed robbery while masked, armed assault in a dwelling and narcotics violations. Last weekend, parole officers determined that Mr. Cruz violated his parole agreement. They went to his house Tuesday to serve a warrant, but he wasn't home. The officers seized a realistic-looking, pellet shotgun from his bedroom, the chief said.
Just a day later, Mr. Cruz had an argument with one tenant at 60 Thomas St., Chief Teachman said.
"Lamont brandished a gun - the same gun we believe he had last night - as he was ordered to leave that apartment," Chief Teachman said. "Another tenant said Lamont indicated that he knew these warrants were outstanding, and he said he would not surrender peacefully." The chief added that he did not know if Officers Kagan and Hegarty knew of Mr. Cruz's record.
Standard-Times archives indicate Mr. Cruz's 1992 conviction came after he hit a County Street home while driving 100 mph in a stolen car during a police chase.
His passenger, 16-year-old Alex Gomes, was killed in the crash. While still in prison in 1996, Mr. Cruz was convicted of cocaine possession.
Mr. Cruz's family, friends and residents of the apartment house at 60 Thomas St. painted a different picture of Mr. Cruz and Thursday's shooting.
Tenants at the apartment house said Mr. Cruz was sitting with a group of four other people, getting ready to watch the World Series in a first-floor bedroom, when the officers entered.
The officers singled Mr. Cruz out, calling him into a common hallway, because his cell phone would not stop ringing, the tenants said.
A man who claimed he was in the bedroom said Mr. Cruz had his hands against a wall as Officers Hegarty and Kagan searched him, when he suddenly bolted for the front door.
"As soon as I heard pop-pop-pop, I ran out and I saw him on the ground," he said. He added that he did not actually see the shooting.
The man, who would not identify himself, said he and others in the house were questioned as paramedics transported Mr. Cruz to St. Luke's Hospital for treatment. They cleaned up after the shooting in yesterday's early morning hours.
"I had to watch my (friend) dying, and they left his blood behind on the floor. I had to clean it up," he said. "They left the mask he probably breathed his last breath in."
Marcy Cruz, wife of Mr. Cruz, said she first heard about the incident from police.
"They came in at about 10 o'clock and told me," she said. "It was 21/2 hours later, and I'm pretty angry about that."
She couldn't believe the news when she heard it, she said.
"He had just misplaced his wallet a few days ago," Mrs. Cruz said. "I just kept saying it can't be, it can't be. Somebody else must have found his wallet and gotten killed."
She rushed to St. Luke's Hospital, where Mr. Cruz's body was being kept. She said she was there for half an hour before she found out police had killed him.
"They (police) said that they went to the home and they were questioning everyone there and he had his hands in his pockets, and that when they ordered him to take his hands out of his pockets, he wouldn't," she said.
Officers at the hospital did not give her any further information, she said. "Nobody said a word to me. Nobody came over to me. Nothing," she said.
Mrs. Cruz said her husband did not own any guns.
"He wouldn't have been allowed to keep them in here," she said of their apartment.
He had a substance abuse problem, and had been clean for years, but he started using again about three weeks ago, she said, adding that the problem may have been what brought him to the Thomas Street house.
She described her husband as a funny, personable, family man.
"He was always joking. He was always laughing," she said. "He never let himself down. He was always working. ... Even if you were in a room with 50 people, you would go to him. 
"He had an aura. He knew everybody."
Their nine-year marriage was a close one, she said.
"We used to go to the beach, she said. "We used to go in Mattapoisett all the time, even in the winter. We had a summer house there."
Mrs. Cruz dismissed her husband's record as "a bunch of childhood and young adult stuff - stupid things he did. He was with the wrong crowd."
Mr. Cruz worked at a landfill in Bourne. For the past year, he had been attending classes at the Arthur Trundy Institute in New Bedford to become a substance abuse counselor.
He and his wife were raising five children, and he had two older children who live at another address.
Mrs. Cruz said she does not work and does not know how her family will get by without her husband's income.
Mrs. Cruz said she's anxious to know what the investigation into her husband's death will find.
But, for yesterday, she had a more immediate concern: how police would portray him.
"I just don't want them to make him into a bad guy," she said. "He worked very hard to be where he was."

*Online extras* 







Click here to listen to the police press conference 







Click here to view a photo slideshow of the scene at 60 Thomas St 







Video clip: Chief Teachman and Capt. Spirlet discuss the replica handgun 

Contact Rob Margetta 
at [email protected]


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## justanotherparatrooper (Aug 27, 2006)

"I just don't want them to make him into a bad guy," she said. "He worked very hard to be where he was."
Am I the only one to see a lawsuit coming?

Mrs. Cruz dismissed her husband's record as "a bunch of childhood and young adult stuff — stupid things he did. He was with the wrong crowd."
How many times have you heard THAT?


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## Mongo (Aug 10, 2006)

Someone points that shit at you. It is best to find out after center mass concentration and firing ,that you find out it is a flippin BB gun.

Lawsuit is inevitable with lethal force.


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## 94c (Oct 21, 2005)

justanotherparatrooper said:


> "I just don't want them to make him into a bad guy," she said. "He worked very hard to be where he was."
> Am I the only one to see a lawsuit coming?
> 
> Mrs. Cruz dismissed her husband's record as "a bunch of childhood and young adult stuff - stupid things he did. He was with the wrong crowd."
> How many times have you heard THAT?


Ground Control to Mrs. Cruz....
Ground Control to Mrs. Cruz....

Your husband was a crack dealer.


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## sdb29 (Jul 17, 2002)

"He worked very hard to be where he was."

Yup. He worked real hard at ending up dead in a hallway. Was pretty good at it ,too.


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