Just days after her release, the North Andover police officer who was shot by a colleague earlier this year was ordered to return to jail and be held without bail.
Kelsey Fitzsimmons was first released on Monday, months after a fellow North Andover police officer shot her during an "armed confrontation." She is now back in custody in the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center.
That incident occurred when officers arrived at Fitzsimmons's residence to serve her a restraining order filed by her fiancé. A police report alleges that Fitzsimmons aimed a weapon at one of the officers, causing him to fear for his life and shoot Fitzsimmons in the chest. Fitzsimmons tells a contradictory version of events, where she never pointed a weapon at the other officer, but instead attempted and failed to take her own life. Fitzsimmons gave birth in February and struggles with postpartum depression, she and her lawyers have said.
Fitzsimmons faces one charge of assault with a dangerous weapon, and has pleaded not guilty. She was released on a number of conditions, including that she not have contact with her infant son, wear a GPS monitoring device, move into her mother and stepfather's home, and regularly submit to alcohol testing.
On Tuesday, Fitzsimmons's lawyers filed court documents requesting that she not be subject to the alcohol testing. Fitzsimmons suffered "severe lung, diaphragm, and liver damage along with broken ribs" after the shooting. She was hospitalized for more than 50 days and "continues to suffer pain and difficulty breathing," they wrote. Due to these injuries, Fitzsimmons can only "sporadically" blow into the alcohol testing device and doing so causes "severe abdominal pain and dizziness."
On Thursday, Judge Kathleen McCarthy-Neyman ruled that Fitzsimmons must return to jail because she cannot comply with the alcohol testing condition. Without this condition, the court cannot assure the safety of the officer who shot Fitzsimmons or the wider community, McCarthy-Neyman wrote.
In her order, McCarthy-Neyman referenced the affidavit Fitzsimmons's fiancé filed when applying for the restraining order. He wrote about an incident on June 28 in Maine, just two days before the shooting. As Fitzsimmons celebrated her bachelorette party, she grew "heavily intoxicated" and physically aggressive, her fiancé alleged. In his affidavit, he said that Fitzsimmons's erratic behavior had caused him to fear for his life and the life of their child.
Fitzsimmons's lawyers have said that her fiancé's affidavit was "full of hearsay and self-serving allegations." They also accused the NAPD of a "botched response" when serving the restraining order.
Fitzsimmons's legal team is pushing McCarthy-Neyman to reconsider her ruling. In documents filed later on Thursday, they said that the judge could instead order her to submit to alternative alcohol testing via urine samples. There is a testing facility near her residence, and her family could easily drive her there whenever testing is needed, they wrote.
Keeping Fitzsimmons in jail could harm her health and expose her to other dangers, they wrote.
"The court's revocation of all conditions to send the defendant back to jail is worse, by far, than even requiring her to submit to the [alcohol testing device]," her lawyers wrote. "Aside from her total loss of liberty, the defendant is a police officer and former corrections officer who would face serious risk of bodily harm in such a facility."