[A] St. Albans man suspected of being a major drug dealer in the area has died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound soon after he had fired at police in that city Wednesday morning.
Two St. Albans City police and a domestic abuse officer were performing a “welfare check” on a woman at a Diamond Street residence at 10:30 a.m., when a shot was fired at them through the door they had knocked on, police said.
The bullet “missed the head of one of the officers by a matter of inches,” the police statement said, but the officer did receive minor injuries from wood and glass debris from the door.
The officers then retreated from the porch of the residence to a home across the street and attempted to talk with the suspected shooter, but received no response from within the residence, police said.
Vermont State Police spokesperson Adam Silverman said at this point no one except the male suspect — who has not been identified — is believed to have fired shots in the standoff.
St. Albans police closed down the road and adjacent streets while Vermont State Police and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene.
At some point between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., police used a ladder they found in the backyard to evacuate the woman whom they had originally arrived to check on from a second story window at the rear of the building.
The unidentified woman, who was unharmed, told police there was only one man in the building and that had he shot himself, St. Albans City Police Chief Gary Taylor told VTDigger in an interview.
At 11:30 a.m., police entered the house and found a man who appeared to have suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was declared dead at the scene.
On Tuesday, Taylor said police found powdered cocaine, crack-cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and a “blue powder substance” in a car belonging to the suspect. He was arrested and charged with possession and intent to sell, but then released.
Taylor said he believes the blue substance in the man’s possession was responsible for a spate of drug-related reports of hallucination and paranoia that had been affecting young people in the St. Albans area over the last few days.
The woman who was rescued from the residence, thought to be the man’s girlfriend, had been admitted to Northwestern Medical Center’s emergency department nine times over the last two days with those symptoms.
“This man was a substantial local drug dealer and had a substantial number of drugs on him yesterday,” the chief said. “This individual had this substance that we think, from our communications with people who have consumed it, is responsible for these hallucination episodes.”
Taylor said it is unclear at this point what the blue substance’s chemical properties are or if the deceased man was the sole dealer of the substance.
No further information on the woman or the man is being released until his family has been notified.
