POUGHKEEPSIE – The 43-year-old man who pointed a realistic-looking handgun at City of Poughkeepsie police, who responded by shooting him, pleaded guilty to multiple charges in Dutchess County Court earlier this week. Kevin Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to three felony counts of menacing a police officer, felony reckless endangerment, and the misdemeanor of falsely reporting an incident.
On December 22, 2024, City of Poughkeepsie 911 received a call from a man who identified himself as Kevin Fitzpatrick, a resident of the building. Fitzpatrick said a masked gunman was in the hallway outside of his apartment door at Fallkill Commons. City cops responded and entered the building at 17 Rose Street at 10:12 a.m. and were confronted by a masked man with a gun in the hallway who matched the description provided by Fitzpatrick.
The man pointed what appeared to be a handgun at officers and refused to comply with verbal commands by police to drop the weapon. With the potential threat still present, officers fired their weapons in the direction of the suspect, in compliance with the department’s policy on the use of deadly force. The suspect is said to have been struck four times by the three officers, with wounds to the abdomen, an arm, and a leg. A second fake gun was found on the man while police were rendering aid.
Fitzpatrick was indicted on the charges while he was in the hospital recovering from the loss of a lengthy section of his large intestine, a portion of his stomach, part of his colon, and some of his abdominal wall. Surgical tubing runs from his torso to a small machine he is required to carry. Police waited until he was released in June 2025 to arrest him. He was arraigned last year before Judge Edward McLoughlin, where he entered a plea of not guilty. He recently changed his plea.
District Attorney Parisi stated, “This defendant deliberately manufactured a dangerous confrontation with law enforcement, placing the lives of responding police officers, innocent residents, and himself at extraordinary risk. Our police officers respond to emergency calls with the expectation that they are being summoned to protect someone in need, not knowingly lured into a potentially deadly encounter. By falsely reporting an armed individual and then pointing a realistic-looking weapon at responding officers, the defendant created a situation that could have ended in unimaginable tragedy in a matter of seconds. The fact that no one was killed or seriously injured does not diminish the severity of his conduct. Our officers should never have to face a life-or-death decision because someone has intentionally engineered a confrontation. I commend the responding officers for their professionalism and restraint under extraordinarily dangerous circumstances.”
A second tenant of the apartment building sustained a non-life-threatening gunshot wound when police were shooting at Fitzpatrick.
Sentencing by Judge Karen Edelman-Reyes is scheduled for January 15, 2027.
Comments