The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office says three police officers who shot and killed Nickenley Turenne, an unarmed Black man, were justified in using lethal force, after they mistook his flashlight for a gun.
A final report into the incident, released Wednesday, said it was “objectively reasonable” for Manchester police officers Andre Chan, Brandon Baliko, and Devin Lambert, “to believe that Mr. Turenne was about to use, or was actively using, deadly force against Officer Chan.”
Turenne’s death last December has led to calls for accountability from the family and the public, including during a Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting in May.
New details in the report shed light on Turenne’s actions and the actions of law enforcement during the incident, as well as Turenne’s mental state.
According to the report, officers initially responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle near Green Acres Elementary School before dawn on Dec. 6. Turenne was asleep in the car, along with a woman who, because of an outstanding court order, he was not supposed to be in contact with.
After an officer knocked on his window, Turenne fled from the officer in his car and crashed, before walking away. An officer followed Turenne for several hundred yards, according to the report. “During this slow walk, Mr. Turenne consistently refused to take his left hand out of his pocket despite repeated commands to do so, told the officer to tell his family he loved them, and told the officer not to shoot,” investigators said in the report.
As additional police arrived, Turenne then walked back towards the vehicle, where he encountered multiple officers.
The shooting was captured on body-worn cameras by multiple officers. The footage was also released on Wednesday.
According to the report, after disregarding repeated commands to show his hands, “instead, Mr. Turenne pulled out an object from his sweatshirt pocket that emitted a white light, turned the light on, clutched the object with both hands, dropped back his right foot, and pointed the object at Officer Chan.”
Investigators at the Attorney General’s office said the officers mistook Turenne’s flashlight for a gun, and opened fire, striking him five times.
“Even though it was later revealed that Mr. Turenne never fired at the officers and did not have a gun, it was reasonable for the officers to have concluded, based on all of the circumstances, that Mr. Turenne presented a danger to Officer Chan and other officers, and that he did, in fact, have a gun,” the attorney general’s office said in its report.
Marsha Kazarosian, an attorney representing Turenne’s family, said she reviewed the report and body-worn footage and views the “totality of the circumstances in a different light” than Attorney General John Formella.
“In my view, I think Nickenley’s civil rights were violated,” said Kazarosian. “And although the officers may not be charged criminally, which we know is a different standard, they may still very well be held accountable civilly.”
Here's what people who loved Nickenley Turenne told us about him.
Members of Turenne’s extended family did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, American Friends Service Committee, a social justice organization that has organized public events on behalf of Turenne’s family, said Thursday that “the report leaves us with more questions than answers; we must continue to interrogate a system that would take a young man's life with no apology or commitment to change.”
Fear of a return to jail
The report details a relationship between Turenne and the woman who was with him in the vehicle that included prior incidents of alleged domestic violence. An outstanding court order prohibited the pair from having contact. In an interview after Turenne was killed, the woman told investigators he had expressed a desire to end his life the evening before his interaction with police, and at one point showed her a bullet that was later found inside his pants pocket.
“He kept saying that he ‘was not going back to jail,’” the woman told authorities, according to the report.
Two days before the shooting, one of the Manchester police officers responded to the woman’s home for a report of domestic violence involving Turenne, who had left the home. The police department circulated a memo warning police that Turenne could be armed.
All three officers had limited experience on the Manchester police force at the time of the shooting.
They were placed on administrative leave after the shooting, but are now back on duty.
“From the beginning of this event, Mr. Turenne escalated the situation,” investigators said in their report. “Instead of talking to Officer Chery in the school parking lot, he drove away in snowy conditions which caused him to drive around the back of a house and crash into a fence.”
“As to why Mr. Turenne acted as he did, recent events in his life may shed light on his state of mind,” the attorney general’s office concluded. “With only one live round of ammunition and no firearm of his own, all of these statements and actions are evidence leading to the conclusion that Mr. Turenne wanted to provoke officers into killing him if the alternative was being taken into custody.”
While no criminal charges will be filed against the officers involved, Turenne’s family could still pursue a civil lawsuit.
Turenne was one of three people killed by police in New Hampshire in 2025.
(Editor’s note: this story has been updated with additional information released by the Attorney General’s office.)
