Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark has ruled that Ludlow Police Chief Jeffrey Warfle was justified when he shot and injured a man on New Year’s Day.
The office of the state’s top prosecutor announced the findings in a press release Friday stemming from the incident where police said Jaime Gomez, 18, allegedly pulled out a knife and lunged at Warfle at a downtown inn in Ludlow where Gomez had been living.
Warfle, according to the release, “reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily harm and was, therefore, justified in using deadly force.”
Following the shooting, Gomez was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, where he was treated for injuries and later released, police said.
Gomez has since been charged with several offenses in connection with the incident, including attempted second-degree murder. Gomez has pleaded not guilty to charges and a judge ordered him held without bail. He was listed Wednesday on the state Department of Corrections website as incarcerated at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
Gomez, in an interview with investigators at the hospital, said on the day of the incident he had been hearing voices and felt scared, anxious and worried, adding that he believed people upstairs at the inn were giving him “alien vibes,” a police affidavit in his criminal case stated.
The incident began a little after 6 a.m. on Jan. 1, according to police, when authorities received a call reporting a noise disturbance at the Fox Run Inn on Main Street. Warfle, who responded to the scene, encountered Gomez, who, according to police, was reported “to be agitated and destroying property” there.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office, in its release Friday, said an investigation that included review of police body camera footage showed that Warfle told Gomez about the noise complaint and Gomez repeatedly asked, “What was I yelling about?”
Warfle then said he would go and speak to the person who had made the complaint and would come back, the release stated. Also, according to the release, based on Gomez’s action, Warfle said to him, “You seem like you’re maybe in crisis,” and Gomez replied, “No crisis.”
As Warfle then went up stairs to speak to the person who made the complaint, Gomez also began walking up the stairs, the release stated.
As Gomez approached, according to the release, Warfle extended his own left hand in a stop gesture while repeatedly asking Gomez to remove his hands from his jacket pockets and stop moving up the stairs.
At one point, the release stated, Gomez tried to strike Warfle with a knife that Gomez had in a jacket pocket. Warfle then drew his gun and fired two rounds, with one grazing Gomez’s left forearm and the other piercing his abdomen, according to the release.
In addition to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, Caledonia County State’s Attorney Claire Burns, acting as conflict counsel on behalf of the Windsor County State’s Attorney’s Office, conducted a separate review of the incident, also finding that Warfle’s use of force was justified.
