Retired Springfield police officer George Stuart held a loaded handgun pointed straight at his heart throughout his entire 7½-hour negotiations, Ludlow Police Chief James McGowan said. Watch video
Springfield Police Commissioner William Fitchet, center, walks out of the woods with officer Richard Rodrigues and Capt. Thomas Trites, both of the Springfield Police Department.LUDLOW – Retired Springfield police officer George W. Stuart held a loaded handgun pointed straight at his heart throughout his entire 7½-hour negotiations Wednesday with Springfield Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet and others.
“He was adamant that this was the day he had chosen (to take his life),” Ludlow Police Chief James J. McGowan said Friday afternoon. McGowan was with Fitchet throughout the ordeal in the woods behind Stuart’s 795 Center St. home.
Stuart kept asking the men, initially including Springfield Police Officer Richard Rodrigues, a close personal friend, to leave and let him do what he had set out into the woods to do, McGowan said. “You guys can just leave, this is all a waste of time and I have made up my mind,” said McGowan, recalling the 71-year-old Stuart’s words.
Fitchet, however, would have none of that, McGowan said. “Commissioner Fitchet was relentless and would not leave,” he said.
Stuart is recovering at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield from a self-inflicted gunshot to the abdomen that occurred at the end of the standoff. McGowan said charges are pending against Stuart, who retired in 1997.
McGowan said Stuart was upset over his pending divorce. According to court documents, Stuart had been supposed to appear at an 8:30 a.m. hearing in Hampden Probate and Family Court in Springfield that very day.
Instead, Stuart is suspected of dousing his home in accelerant and setting it on fire around 10:30 a.m. His wife, Rena Brunelle, had not been living there for some time and was not present, McGowan said. The blaze did substantial damage to the home and investigators found evidence that money had been burned, McGowan said, adding that he did not know how much.
Then, armed with a .38 caliber snub-nose handgun, Stuart took to the woods, McGowan said.
McGowan, on vacation but still in the Ludlow area, said he was informed of the fire and the possibility that Stuart might still be inside the house, shortly after the fire broke out. About a half-hour later, McGowan said he was informed that Stuart was armed and making his way through the woods in back of his house.
That’s when McGowan decided to have his department call on Fitchet for help.
“I knew that (Fitchet) knew (Stuart) very well and he came right out here,” said McGowan. “To be honest, he beat me out here.”
At about noon, Fitchet, McGowan and Rodrigues entered the woods and found Stuart about 150 feet away from his home. Stuart’s original intent was to make his away to the other side of the woods, in the area of Fox Hill Road, but a strong police presence there turned him away, McGowan said.
The three were slightly apart and Fitchet was the one who made initial contact with Stuart, McGowan said. As they talked, Fitchet asked Rodrigues to stand down; with the permission of Stuart, he eventually asked Rodrigues to join them.
After a time, again with permission from Stuart, McGowan joined the group. “We were all within 5 or 6 feet of him most of the day,” he said.
The four men then talked, for hours. They drank water and Gatorade in an effort to beat the 90-degree temperatures and high humidity that dominated the day. At times Stuart, growing tired, sat on the ground – never failing to keep the muzzle of the gun pointed at this heart, according to McGowan.
“He knows guns from top to bottom,” McGowan said of Stuart, an award-wining marksman during his years on the force. “He knew ammunition from top to bottom. He knew exactly what the outcome that he had planned would be.”
Throughout the day, the officers kept urging Stuart to drop his weapon, walk out of the woods and get into Fitchet’s car for a ride to the hospital.
At times Stuart appeared to waiver a bit in his resolve to take his own life, McGowan said. “We had him in tears a couple of times, getting him to realize that whatever he was thinking didn’t have to happen that way. ... I really believe we had a chance in that sense.,” he said.
As adamant, however, as Stuart was about talking his own life, he was equally adamant that he had no intention of hurting any law enforcement officials.
“His initial intent wasn’t for this to end the way it was ending up,” McGowan said. “He had other plans.”
McGowan declined to elaborate on the plans, saying he didn’t want to interfere with the investigation Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni is conducting jointly with his department.
At some point as the hours dragged on, Rodrigues left the group. McGowan said he and Fitchet continued to try to convince Stuart to get into Fitchet’s car, which was parked in the back yard of Stuart’s home. Toward that end, the two officers convinced Stuart to walk closer to the backyard, hoping that the sight of Fitchet’s car would prompt him to give up the gun.
McGowan moved a bit ahead, asked Stuart how best to negotiate a barbed wire fence with the intent of getting Fitchet’s car and pulling it closer.
At that point McGowan said he heard a scuffle behind him and looked back at Fitchet and Stuart.
“(Stuart) looked at the commissioner and said “‘This is it, it’s over’ and the commissioner believed he was about to pull the trigger on his weapon,” McGowan said. “At that, very bravely to be sure, (Fitchet) grabbed the revolver and pushed it up into the air and away from Mr. Stuart.”
The shot went wild into the air, scorching and drawing blood from Fitchet’s hand and fingers, McGowan said, adding that Fitchet later said he thought he had lost a finger when the gun went off.
“Commissioner Fitchet didn’t give up and he just kept pushing the gun away from (Stuart),” McGowan said, adding that the .38 is a small gun, difficult to control when it’s in the hands of another, and he believes that Stuart was able to twist it enough to get a shot into his body.
“He was trying to get his heart, he was intent on getting his heart, but the commissioner kept pushing the gun down. The bravery that the commissioner showed was tremendous, as was his commitment to not wanting to see Mr. Stuart hurt himself,” McGowan said.
The second shot, which occurred three or four seconds after the first, penetrated Stuart’s abdomen and the long ordeal was finally over.
Fitchet has declined to publicly discuss his role in the incident.