DA's Report: Ambrose was shot at least 6 times

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Hampden County District Attorney Mark Mastroianni has released his final report on the June 4 murder of Springfield Police Officer Kevin Ambrose.

In the report, Mastroianni says a Hampden County grand jury returned an indictment Tuesday against Shawn Bryan, the man who shot and killed Officer Ambrose, and seriously wounded his ex-girlfriend, Charlene Mitchell.

The report details the events of June 4, when Officer Ambrose answered a call involving Mitchell and Bryan. Bryan, a corrections officer in New York, was retrieving items from Mitchell’s apartment. She had just taken a restraining order out against him after he allegedly made threatening statements to her.

When Ambrose escorted Mitchell, Bryan, and Mitchell’s child inside the Lawton Street apartment, Bryan at first was calm, but then went after Mitchell, pushing her and the child inside. Ambrose went to the door to stop Bryan, but the corrections officer fired through the door- then opened the door and fired at Ambrose again.

The report says Officer Ambrose sustained a total of seven gunshot wounds to his head and upper torso during the altercation. Investigators believe that only six shots were fired at him, because he may have two separate wounds from the same bullet. Three of Ambrose’s wounds were to his face and neck, three were to his left arm and shoulder area, and one was to his right arm.

Mitchell was then shot twice, sustaining wounds to the face, abdomen, and left elbow. Mastroianni says she saved herself and her child by playing dead.

Mastroianni says Bryan was then seen running to his car where he was found a short time later by police, dead, slumped over the steering wheel. The medical examiner has concluded that Bryan was killed by three self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the heart and lung.

Though he is dead, Bryan was indicted for murder Tuesday by the grand jury, which the DA says is needed to close the case.

“Upon the return of the grand jury indictments, I have filed the appropriate paperwork in the Hampden County Superior Court which serves as an official notice of Shawn Bryan’s death. That filing effectively concludes all investigative and prosecutorial efforts available, under the circumstances, relative to the actions of Shawn Bryan on June 4, 2012,” Mastroianni wrote in the report.

Click here to read the final report in its entirety.