Two police officers involved in a New Year's Day encounter that left a teenager in Gilford dead have no previous formal disciplinary actions in their personnel files, according to records obtained by NHPR.
Sergeant Douglas Wall and Officer Nathan Ayotte of the Gilford Police Department responded to the home of 17-year-old Mischa Fay shortly before 10 p.m. The teenager’s parents called 911 requesting assistance with their son who was described as in a “rage” and wielding a knife. Dispatch records show that two minutes after arriving at the home, Ayotte deployed a Taser and Wall fired his gun, killing the teenager.
The incident remains under investigation by the New Hampshire Department of Justice, which has declined to release body cam footage of the incident.
[Read NHPR's previous coverage of this story here.]
Documents released by the state’s Police Standards and Training Council show that neither Wall or Ayotte have any formal findings of disciplinary infractions on their records, and both had attendedmental health training programs, though the details of those trainings weren’t immediately available.
Wall is a veteran officer with more than 20 years on the job. He was recently promoted to sergeant, according to his personnel file. Ayotte graduated from the full-time state police academy in 2021 after graduating from Plymouth State University.
Both of the officers had previously responded to the Fay residence for a series of distress calls involving Mischa. An obituary for the teenager said he had been suffering from declining health during the previous two years. He had been hospitalized on at least two occasions, according to police dispatch records.
