A former Massachusetts police officer, once embroiled in a dramatic courtroom battle, has been acquitted of charges that accused her of attempting to shoot her colleagues. The high-profile case, centered around 29-year-old Kelsey Fitzsimmons, concluded with a verdict of not guilty, bringing an end to a saga that captivated public attention.
Relief washed over Fitzsimmons as the judge’s decision was announced, prompting emotional embraces with her family on Thursday. The verdict spares her from a potential five-year prison sentence, allowing her to return to her life without the shadow of incarceration looming overhead.
The incident that sparked the legal drama dates back to June 2025. On that day, chaos erupted when Fitzsimmons allegedly brandished a firearm at officers from the North Andover Police Department. This confrontation arose as they attempted to serve her with a restraining order filed by her fiancé, 32-year-old firefighter Justin Aylaian.
The prosecution claimed Fitzsimmons aimed her service weapon at the officers and pulled the trigger, though the gun jammed. However, Fitzsimmons maintained that her true intention was tragically self-directed, describing a failed suicide attempt in which she meant to turn the weapon on herself.
Amid the turmoil, officer Pat Noonan shot Fitzsimmons in the chest, resulting in a serious injury that left her with a collapsed lung and required a lengthy hospital stay. Following her recovery, she faced charges of attempted assault on her fellow officers, charges that have now been dismissed with the court’s ruling in her favor.
In own testimony this week, Fitzsimmons insisted that she never tried to shoot any officers and only tried to kill herself.
She said on the stand that she wanted to end her life after ‘losing everything’. She testified that she feared her life was spiraling out of control after Aylaian ended the relationship and tried to seize custody of their child.
‘I saw my baby go, my fiancé, my dog, my house, and I knew that it was going to be my job, too,’ she said in her testimony.
Former Massachusetts police officer Kelsey Fitzsimmons has been found not guilty of trying to open fire on her fellow officers as they served her with a restraining order from her firefighter fiancé
Fitzsimmons, 29, appeared emotional in court on Thursday as the verdict was read, hugging her attorneys and family as she breathed a sigh of relief. She faced up to five years behind bars, but will now walk free
The chaotic episode unfolded in June 2025, when Fitzsimmons’ firefighter fiancé Justin Aylaian ended the relationship and alleged that she had threatened him and their four-month-old son
Handing down his verdict, Judge Karp said the case was one of the ‘more exhausting, hardest things’ he has done in his judicial career.
Fitzsimmons had requested a bench trial meaning she did not have to face a jury and her fate rested solely with the judge.
Karp said while there was ‘no evidence’ of a conspiracy among police to cover-up the facts of the shooting, he was not swayed by arguments that Fitzsimmons tried to shoot her fellow officers.
The judge also acknowledged the ‘crucial and often thankless role’ of police officers, and said he believed Noonan did the best he could in the situation when he shot Fitzsimmons.
But he said although he found both Noonan and Fitzsimmons’ testimony to be credible, he ultimately decided that prosecutors did not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Fitzsimmons, who was on maternity leave from the police department at the time of the shooting, previously told the court she was blindsided by Aylaian’s decision to leave her and only realized he was ending things when she was given the restraining order.
However, the couple’s relationship had been deteriorating for some time, and hit a low point weeks before the shooting after they attended a boozy joint bachelor and bachelorette party where they accused each other of drinking to excess.
Fitzsimmons told the court that hours before being served with the restraining order, she and Aylaian got into a bitter argument about caring for their son because he refused to take him while she went to CPR training.
Fitzsimmons admitted to lying about where her service weapon was during the incident. Prosecutors argued that she abruptly grabbed it and pointed it at officers, but she claimed she only intended to shoot herself
Fitzsimmons was a North Andover Police officer for just over a year before she was shot. She was fired following the incident
Pat Noonan, pictured, is the police officer who shot Kelsey Fitzsimmons during the fiery confrontation a court was told
Fitzsimmons said she had to take the CPR training to prepare for her return to work, but Aylaian did not want to pick up their baby, which forced her to take the infant with her.
She testified that while driving home, she saw her fiancé’s truck outside a friend’s property surrounded by other vehicles she recognized from the bachelor and bachelorette party which roused her suspicions.
She claimed that she then realized her phone number had been blocked by Aylaian. One of his friends allegedly tried to reassure her the vehicles she saw were only gathered at the property to pick up items left behind from a party.
She said she knew ‘something was going on’, and parked in a school parking lot near her home so he would not know she was home in case Aylaian came back.
Soon after Noonan and two other officers arrived at her home.
In her testimony, she admitted that she lied to the officers about where her service weapon was when they showed up at her home to serve her with the document, claiming it was in her basement when it was actually in her bedroom.
She said she intended to use the gun to kill herself, testifying: ‘I made that decision as I realized I had just lost everything in a 15-second conversation with my coworker.’
Her testimony came the day after Noonan took to the stand to claim that he was forced to shoot her because he feared she was trying to kill her fiancé.
Fitzsimmons, seen taking the stand in her own defense this week, insisted that she never would have shot her colleagues and only intended to kill herself when she raised the weapon
Fitzsimmons was seen flashing a filthy look in court as her former colleague testified that he was forced to shoot her because he feared she was trying to kill her fiancé
Fitzsimmons stared down her former North Andover Police colleague in court as he testified.
Noonan told the court: ‘I think I was standing in her way for her to get downstairs and kill Justin.’
Massachusetts does not have a state law requiring police departments to wear body cameras and the North Andover Police Department officers at the scene were not wearing cameras that would have shown the episode in Fitzsimmons’s home.
Noonan alleged that Fitzsimmons pointed her service weapon at him and pulled the trigger, but said it made a ‘click’ noise because the gun was jammed.
He said he had no choice but to shoot her because she then ‘tap racked’ the gun, a move to clear a jam that feeds a bullet into the chamber.
In cross examination of Noonan, Fitzsimmons’ attorney Timothy Bradl argued that the police officer did not need to shoot her in the chest and alleged he used excessive force.
Bradl claimed that Fitzsimmons lifted the gun in an attempt to shoot herself in the head, saying she was going through a mental health crisis and feared losing custody of her son.
He accused Noonan of unnecessarily shooting her, saying: ‘You know it’s prohibited for someone to use deadly force on someone who is only exhibiting harm to themselves?’
Fitzsimmons said she was terrified of police taking her baby away from her
Noonan, a SWAT team trained cop, responded: ‘Absolutely.’
Asked why he didn’t tase her instead, Noonan said: ‘We meet deadly force with deadly force.’
In her testimony, Fitzsimmons said she tried to move Noonan into another room before shooting herself.
‘I knew if I pulled out my firearm in front of a police officer, I would get shot,’ she said.
‘I’m not dumb, I was a police officer. If someone takes out a gun in front of you, yes, that’s a threat, yes, that’s somebody that you probably feel threatened from.
‘Even looking back now, reflecting for nine months, I think my decision to do it to myself was selfish to everybody who loves me. I wanted to kill myself. Me and my gun. No one else involved.’
Bradl said Fitzsimmons was suffering from postpartum depression during the shooting incident. He said her life ‘imploded’ when Aylaian filed a restraining order against her.
The defense attorney alleged that officer Noonan tried to ‘adjust the narrative’ after the shooting in order to protect himself and argued that he did not need to shoot Fitzsimmons in the chest.
He described Fitzsimmons as a panicking mother who thought her life was spiraling out of control.
‘She made a decision for herself and it’s a decision that takes your breath away,’ Bradl said.
Prosecutors disputed Fitzsimmons’ version of the incident, claiming that the only reason it did not turn deadly was because there was no bullet in the chamber of her gun and because of Noonan’s SWAT team training
The former police officer was shot in the chest during the incident and suffered a collapsed lung
‘She decides to end her life with her firearm in her bedroom. She knows her firearm is in her bedroom, and she tells police something else.
‘She tells them the guns are in the basement, because she doesn’t want to involve them. The idea of harming them, the evidence will show, is ludicrous.
‘She’s trying to get them away from her.’
Prosecutors disputed Fitzsimmons’s version of the incident, claiming that the only reason it did not turn deadly was because there was no bullet in the chamber of her gun and because of Noonan’s SWAT team training.
They said Noonan was with Fitzsimmons when she then went into her bedroom and he ‘noticed that her demeanor changes and she gets upset, at that point she lunges to her right.’
The prosecutor alleged earlier in the trial that she picked up her service weapon from in her bedroom, pointed it at the officers and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire.
He alleged that she then tried to rerack the gun and raised it up, leading Noonan to shoot at her twice. One missed her and the other hit her in the chest.
Aylaian, a local firefighter in North Andover, Massachusetts, previously alleged that Fitzsimmons threatened him and their newborn.
He testified in her trial on Monday, saying that he decided to move out of their home and try to gain full custody of their son over fears that she may harm herself or their family.
Fitzsimmons was a North Andover Police officer for just over a year before the she was shot. She was fired following the incident.
