The man who murdered two cops after luring them to his home with a fake 911 call allegedly interacted with officers at a local bar earlier that night.

Nicholas Brutcher and local cops crossed paths at Bleachers Bar in Bristol, Connecticut, though it is unclear what the interaction consisted of, according to CT Insider.

Earlier reports suggested Brutcher had been kicked out of a bar before he carried out his rampage, though it is unclear whether that was Bleachers Bar.

Bleachers declined to comment when contacted by DailyMail.com, with the revelation offering a possible motive for the ambush double-murder.

The news comes as police released the body-cam footage of Alec Iurato, 26, one of the three officers who responded Brutcher’s home in Bristol last Wednesday.

Once the cops arrived, Brutcher suddenly opened fire on them, unloading more than 80 rounds at the unsuspecting officers. Dustin DeMonte, 35, and Alex Hamzy, 34, were both killed in the shootout.

Officer Iurato was shot in the leg but managed to run for cover, before eventually finding an opening and killing Brutcher with a single gunshot. It remains unclear what motivated Brutcher to carry out the attack.

lurato’s body-camera footage showed the officer hiding behind a tree as he desperately called dispatch for back up.

‘Shots fired, shots fired, more cars, send everyone!’ Iurato yelled into his radio, as hysterical screaming could be heard in the background.   

‘Officer shot, officer shot,’ he then reported, as he leaned on the tree and groaned with pain from his wounded leg. 

After another gunshot rang out Iurato began to limp to his car for better cover, then a loud burst of nearly thirty gunshots erupted.

Iurato took cover behind a squad car, and peering over the hood he took aim and fired a single shot.

‘He’s down,’ somebody could be heard saying aloud as Iurato shone a light on the location where Brutcher fell, before he then called ‘One down,’ in over his radio as somebody can be heard wailing ‘No! Oh god!’ aloud.

Police said Brutcher’s 9-11 was ‘a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.’

Witness Danny Rodriguez said he heard three sets of gunshots and 30 shots in total. He says he heard another woman yelling out during the shooting: ‘you killed them!’

‘I heard a whole war going on behind me,’ Rodriguez said, according to KOCO.

According to the New York Times, Rodriguez saw a man dressed in camouflage leaving the Brutcher home with a rifle. Another man followed and attempted to restrain the camouflaged man before he was shot.

Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema said state troopers and detectives are still gathering evidence and the ‘very complex’ investigation is ongoing.

She added that it was an ‘isolated incident’ with ‘no threat to the community’ during a press conference. 

Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould added that the deaths were as a result of ‘senseless violence’ which has brought the force ‘sadness and grief.’

‘They answered a call to duty, and they responded without hesitation, and that’s what they did every night before that,’ Gould said. ‘And that’s what all our officers do and will continue to do day after day.’

Neighbors said the divorced dad of two was ‘always drinking,’ and that he’d often be around checking on his brother Nathaniel. Nathaniel was shot but not killed in the Wednesday altercation.

Another neighbor described Nathaniel as a ‘skater punk’ and ‘man-child’ who was constantly under the influence and did little to get his life together.

‘Nate is high as a kite every time I see him. But cocaine doesn’t drive you to call cops and shoot them,’ he said.

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The neighbors also spoke of the Brutcher’s family, which includes their mom and dad, two brothers and an adopted sister.

‘Their mother must be a wreck right now,’ a neighbor told the New York Post. ‘She’s also crazier than a f**king bag of chips.’

The neighbor added the Brutcher’s father has ‘got a really good heart. He’s been taking care of their mother and those boys for years. That dude’s a strong man.’

Sergeant DeMonte was hired in 2012 and worked as a school resource officer, and is survived by his wife Laura and two young children Phoebe and Porter. The couple was expecting a third child.

‘Words cannot express the sadness and grief that brings me before you this morning,’ Gould said.

DeMonte was named the 2019 Officer of the Year and also worked as an advisor for the explorer cadet program.

Officer Hamzy joined in 2014, working the patrol division and is survived by his wife Katie, parents and two sisters. 

Iurato was hired in 2018, and was also assigned to the patrol division. 

In a bizarre twist, it was discovered that Brutcher and Hamzy were Facebook friends with each other, who apparently went by Alex Yzmah on the social networking platform.

It is unclear whether the two actually knew each other.

It was also uncovered that Brutcher attended Bristol Central High School at the same time as former New England Patriot Aaron hernandez. 

Hernandez died by suicide in a Massachusetts prison cell in 2017, after his arrest and conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013. 

He had been acquitted in the double murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado and he was appealing his conviction for the murder of Lloyd when he killed himself at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster. 

It was later determined that he’d had an advanced stage of CTE, which causes brain damage and is common among NFL players. 

Brutcher and Hernandez both played on the school’s football team and had several mutual friends, according to the New York Post. It is unclear if they had any relationship beyond that, as Brutcher was a senior when Hernandez was a freshman. 

The day after the shooting, scores of Connecticut cops turned out to the site of the attack to pay their respects to the fallen police officers. 

Photos showed uniformed officers lining the street, and many wiping away tears and embracing one another at the memorial gathering. 

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont directed flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the fallen officers.

Mourners have left several floral tributes outside of the Bristol Connecticut Police Department, which also has black bunting hung over their sign. 

The shooting deaths of the two Connecticut officers and wounding of a third punctuated an especially violent week for police across the U.S. and fit into a grim pattern: Even as more officers left their jobs in the past two years, the number targeted and killed rose.

According to organizations that track violence against police, 56 officers have been killed by gunfire this year – 14% more than this time last year and about 45% ahead of 2020’s pace. 

The country is on track for the deadliest year since 67 officers were killed in 2016.

While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020.

Ambushes account for nearly half the officers killed this year. 

‘Those are really scary numbers for law enforcement, not just for individual officers, but for the organizations they work for, which have to be taking this into account as they’re hiring, retaining and training officers,’ said Bill Alexander, executive director of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

The organisation tracks officer deaths in the line of duty.

‘It’s not lost on the officers that the job they signed up for has become more dangerous,’ he said. ‘That has to be taking a significant mental toll on the agencies at large and the individual officers doing the work.’