A police officer's deadly force was justified when he shot and killed a knife-wielding teenager with mental health issues on New Year's Day, 2023, New Hampshire’s attorney general said Thursday.
Two Gilford Police officers were responding to a 911 call from 17-year-old Mischa Pataski-Fay's mother. She said she feared for the safety of her 86-year-old husband, who had locked himself in a home office while she sought help, according to investigators.
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Ben Agati, a senior assistant attorney general, laid out a detailed sequence of events leading up to the teenager's death, bolstered by bodycam footage from Sgt. Douglas Wall, who fired the fatal shot, and officer Nathan Ayotte. The findings mean the officers, who are already back to work, likely won't face charges.
Agati said the teen's parents first noticed significant changes in their son's behavior in 2021, and that he underwent a number of treatments and hospitalizations. Doctors had come back with various possible diagnoses, ranging from a viral infection to the early indications of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, Agati said.
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Both officers who responded that night had reported previous interactions with the teen, Agati said, including one in which Pataski-Fay placed his hand on Wall's taser.
In the days leading up to the shooting, the teen had been confused or irritated at times, but on New Year's Day he was acting in a typical manner, eating Taco Bell for dinner and watching television before going to bed at about 9 p.m., Agati said.
He later got up and started acting out, ripping off his armoire door and throwing it over a stair railing, Agati said. When Beth Pataski-Fay left the house to seek help, she told police she heard her son rummaging through the knife drawer and indicated he had a large kitchen knife.
The bodycam footage shows Wall walking up the stairs with his gun drawn and Ayotte holding his taser. They yell out that they are from Gilford Police and tell the teen to show himself. Mischa Pataski-Fay approaches them with the 8-inch blade of the knife pointing downward. Agati said Wall fired a single shot that hit the teenager's chest at almost the same time Ayotte fired his taser, which only partially hit the teenager and didn't release an electric shock.
The officers performed CPR until medics arrived, and Mischa Pataski-Fay later died at a hospital. An autopsy found he had therapeutic levels of three prescribed medications in his system.
“Any loss of life is tragic, no matter the circumstances,” said Attorney General John Formella. “But I do want to acknowledge it's particularly difficult when we are talking about the loss of life of a child."
New Hampshire's judicial branch recently launched a statewide effort to improve outcomes for people with mental illness or substance use disorder who come in contact with the criminal justice system. Following a national model, workshops will be held in every county and include prosecutors, police, health care providers, community groups and those with lived experiences.
The goal is to prevent people from unnecessarily entering the criminal justice system, add resources for those already in it and identify any service gaps. The first workshop was held last week in Manchester.
