Posted on 11/26/2015 5:07:43 PM PST by raccoonradio
MILLIS, Mass. — A former police officer fired and indicted for fabricating a story about a shootout with a mystery gunman in September and calling in a fake bomb threat to the high school was found dead at his home on Thanksgiving.
Bryan Johnson, 24, was pronounced dead early Thursday, the Norfolk district attorney's office said in a statement.
Police said they were called to the home around 3:30 a.m. by another resident of the house who found Johnson unresponsive. They said no signs of foul play were found at the scene, and the death was not being investigated as a homicide.
Authorities said an autopsy would be performed.
A grand jury had indicted Johnson on Nov. 19 on a charge of willful communication of a bomb threat to a school, making a false police report, malicious destruction of property and unlawful discharge of a firearm. He had pleaded not guilty in district court and was free on bail.
The district attorney's office said that in light of his death, it no longer would pursue the case. Johnson faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the school bomb threat alone.
Johnson had said a man in a pickup fired at his cruiser on Sept. 2. He said he returned fire, crashed into a tree and his SUV caught fire. His claims prompted a search by dozens of SWAT team members and other officers, a shelter-in-place order for residents and a school lockdown.
An investigation determined his account was a hoax and that Johnson had used his 9mm handgun to shoot at his vehicle. He later told investigators he blacked out.
He underwent a psychiatric evaluation after his version of what happened was determined to have been a fabrication.
Johnson, a part-time officer, subsequently was fired.
He had been promoted from dispatcher to part-time officer last year and was scheduled to start training as a full-time officer for the town of about 8,000 residents on the Charles River, about 25 miles southwest of Boston.
The autopsy should tell the tale.
The district attorney’s office said that in light of his death, it no longer would pursue the case...
Yeah, having a corpse in a chair the whole time, putting it on the stand, wasting tax dollars laying it in a cell for 10 years and the resulting insects, etc...it’s just not worth it,
So why was this unstable person a cop?
“So why was this unstable person a cop?”
My first thought as well! Yikes!
The guy clearly had issues dealing with reality. To his credit, he didn’t take anybody else’s life in his meltdown.
Thank you—that DA’s statement made no sense to me either.
Hope you’re having a great Thanksgiving on Staten Island!
Thanks. Did the same as every year. bring a dozen Italian pastries to sister in law, no one eats them and we take them home :)
Works every year.
Hope yours was a good one too!
Nothing like Italian pastries—yum!
Was a beautiful sunny warm day here in southern Delaware.
Do you suppose this might be a Captain Obvious moment? It DOES seem a bit counter productive to put a dead guy on trial. Do these people actually engage their brains before they put their feet in their mouths?
Maybe he fabricated his death, too.
lol i guess not.
It looks like society dodged a bullet on this one.
He just wasn’t as adept at covering his tracks as the career guys.
That question never gets old.
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