He admitted shooting at Plymouth police, pleading guilty to 18 firearms-related charges.
Even so, a judge has ruled, the imprisoned Michael Walsh can sue four officers who returned fire during a 2018 gunfight outside his Federal Furnace Road home, severely injuring him.
“It’s outrageous that police officers who risked their lives and got shot at can be sued for defending themselves,” Plymouth Police Chief Dana Flynn said in an email. “Justice will be served when this case is thrown out.”
Police plan to appeal the judge’s ruling, which denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment. Had it been granted, the case would have been dismissed.
The appeal will take time — both sides must first submit written briefs and then argue at a hearing. No dates or deadlines have been set, according to the officers’ lawyers, Thomas Donohue and Francesca Papia.
Walsh, 43, who is serving five to seven years at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, filed his $2.5 million lawsuit on March 3, 2021, two years before his criminal case was decided.
He accused officers of using excessive force, violating his civil rights. and assault and battery when they responded to a 911 call from his wife saying that the distraught Walsh had shot at her and her daughter as they tried to flee from their house.
Plymouth officers were dispatched to their home on April 26, 2018, where the gunfight took place.
Walsh was accused of firing one shot before retreating briefly into his house. A minute later, he allegedly came out firing a handgun, hitting some of the officers’ cruisers.
Police returned fire, striking Walsh as he ran across his front yard.
In all, police fired 49 times, a state police report said. In a deposition Walsh, said he was hit eight to 12 times.
He was shot in the head, shoulder, arm, back, chest, and buttocks, he said at a 2024 deposition, and suffers lingering physical and emotional issues, including migraines, weakness, numbness, and disfigurement.
One bullet hit a neighbor’s house, his lawyer, Robert Johnson Jr., said.
According to court papers, Walsh is seeking damages for medical expenses and lost wages (even though he testified that he wasn’t working at the time).
He originally sued the town, too, but that part of his lawsuit was dismissed earlier.
The remaining defendants are officers Robert Hackett, Thomas DeLaura, David Lis, and Thomas Kelly. Only DeLaura and Lis are still with the department. Kelly retired and Hackett is working for the Duxbury Police Department.
None of the officers were wounded in the confrontation.
In his January 30 ruling, Plymouth Superior Court Judge Brian Glenny said that just because Walsh pleaded guilty does not necessarily mean he committed the crimes.
“When a defendant pleads guilty, waiving his right to a trial by jury, scarce judicial and prosecutorial resources are conserved,” Glenny wrote, citing a ruling in a different case.
“While the judge taking the plea must satisfy himself that there is a factual basis for a charge, he need not find that the defendant actually committed the crime to which he is pleading guilty.”
A lawsuit cannot be dismissed, the judge wrote, if there are factual disputes — like contradictory accounts of what happened.
“The record is rife with disputes surrounding … critical issues,” Glenny wrote.
The key fact in dispute is whether Walsh sparked the shootout by firing at police.
Walsh has acknowledged shooting first, but said he aimed into the air— and was then met with a barrage of bullets from the officers, most of whom were carrying AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. He had a small caliber handgun.
At his April 2023 change of plea hearing, however, Walsh said the following prosecutor’s version of events was true:
After police arrived on the scene, Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Sharon Thibeault told the judge, Walsh came out of his front door. He “raised his arm, fired in the direction of the police with the handgun as he ran onto the lawn. A police cruiser suffered a projectile hole in its side. The police returned fire hitting the defendant.”
A Ring camera video, introduced as evidence in the case, captured the “entire outside shooting situation,” she said.
(Warning: This video is graphic in nature and may be disturbing to some viewers.)
After Thibeault laid out the case against Walsh, Superior Court Judge Maynard Kirpalani questioned him.
“Did you hear and understand what the prosecutor has just said?” according to a transcript of the plea hearing.
“Yes, your honor,” Walsh said.
“And do you admit that the facts explained by her are true?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor,” he answered.
“Do you understand that by pleading guilty you’re admitting that the facts that the prosecutor just described are true?”
“Yes, your honor,” he said.
Plymouth Police were already familiar with Walsh, who was severely injured in 2016 while he was a police officer in South Carolina. He was struck by a drunk driver while on route to a shooting at a local McDonald’s.
They had been to his Federal Furnace Road home before the 2018 incident, court records said, for relatively minor issues like disputes with neighbors or a former girlfriend.
According to the lawsuit, police knew he had sustained the brain injury years before.
But “rather than bringing a psychologist to Walsh’s home,” Johnson wrote in court papers, “they brought semi-automatic rifles.”
On that day in April 2018, Walsh was especially agitated, the prosecutor said at Walsh’s 2023 change of plea hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Thibeault said Walsh had just returned from a meeting with officials of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, who had removed one of his children from the home.
At the time, Walsh was living with his then wife, Sarah Gardner, and his stepdaughter, Marissa Gardner.
When the women tried to leave the house because Walsh was becoming increasingly agitated and aggressive, Thibeault said, he followed them outside and fired rounds from a handgun, striking Gardner’s car.
Gardner and her daughter were able to get away — even as Walsh pounded the hood with his fists as they started to back down the driveway, the prosecutor said.
As he struck the car, Thibeault told the judge at the hearing, Walsh stated repeatedly, “This is my night to die.”
Once a safe distance down the road, Gardner dialed 911, the prosecutor said. In the frantic call, she told the dispatcher that her husband shot at her and asked that police go to their house.
“I’m afraid my husband is shooting himself,” she said in the recorded call reviewed by the Independent. She told the operator her husband just phoned and told her he loved her.
Gardner, who is now divorced from Walsh, is a co-plaintiff in the case.
Police officers raced to the house, setting up a perimeter across the street, according to a police report and the prosecutor.
Walsh said he fired into the air while standing on his porch and then went inside. Police shot through the door, he said, piercing windows, his TV and the walls.
Afraid that the house would be destroyed, he said, he emerged again — and this time allegedly fired at the police.
He was met with a hail of bullets, Walsh said in his deposition.
“It was like a war zone,” he said.
“I don’t know if I wanted them to shoot me, or I didn’t want them to shoot me. I just think it was a cry for help. My life was falling apart that day.”
“They knew I had a traumatic brain injury and they took no efforts to assist me,” he said.
He said he thought he was dead.
Jennifer Sunderland, Walsh’s lawyer in the 2018 criminal case, said Plymouth police, aware of his brain injury, should have offered to help instead of firing at him.
She argued for probation, while the prosecutor requested a prison sentence of 19 1/2 to 20 years.
In the aftermath of the incident, then-Plymouth police Captain John Rogers conducted an investigation to determine whether the officers were justified in using deadly force.
In his December 2018 report, Rogers wrote:
“After a review of all reports concerning statements from officers, video surveillance and crime scene processing, I find that all officers at the scene were in full compliance with the use of force policy for this department,” he said.
The officers did what was “reasonably necessary” to protect their lives and safety and the lives and safety of others, Rogers wrote.
Police are authorized to use deadly force to protect themselves or others from what is believed to be an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury, the policy says.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.