Weymouth police officers who fatally shot 25-year-old Sean Barry during a knife standoff at Webb Memorial State Park in March will face no further action, the Norfolk District Attorney’s office announced, concluding the officers acted reasonably after Barry attacked all three of them with a large kitchen knife.
District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office said the officers were “reasonable and justified” when they opened fire on Barry, a Weymouth resident, according to The Boston Globe. Police had responded to multiple 911 calls on March 18 about a suicidal man at the park and found Barry inside a bathroom cutting his own wrist with a large kitchen knife.
Officers tried to talk Barry into putting the knife down so first responders could help him, but he kept voicing suicidal thoughts and refused, per the same account. After an officer deployed a taser, Barry turned and attacked all three officers with the knife, the report said.
Firearm Malfunction Preceded Fatal Shots
As Barry ran toward one officer, that officer drew his firearm, but it malfunctioned, the Globe’s reporting states. Barry then charged toward a second officer, who fired two rounds into Barry’s chest. That officer told investigators he feared for his life and believed Barry was about to stab him.
Barry died of his injuries while being taken to South Shore Hospital. Morrissey said the death was ruled a homicide but stressed that classification alone does not mean a crime occurred, noting that “not all homicides are criminal or unlawful.”
The district attorney said he reached his conclusion after reviewing witness statements and interviews with the responding officers and others who were at the scene that day. Morrissey determined the officers’ actions were reasonably necessary because Barry posed an imminent threat of danger and potentially death, and said his office would take no further action regarding the officers involved.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Crisis-Related Shootings
The Weymouth case is one of several recent fatal police shootings in Massachusetts that began as responses to people in apparent mental health crises. A report from NBC Boston examining five recent deadly police shootings found that at least three started as calls tied to apparent mental health crises, describing it as a growing challenge for law enforcement. The same report noted that two other fatal shootings, in Weymouth and in Westminster, also began with police responding to calls involving men armed with knives and witnesses describing signs of distress.
A separate incident in Brighton in late October followed a similar pattern. Boston police shot and killed a man who was wielding a knife and experiencing a mental health crisis, according to WBUR, which reported that officers tried to de-escalate the situation for 20 minutes before the man charged at them with the knife.
Not every recent case involved a knife or a mental health crisis framing. In Cambridge, a judicial inquest into the fatal shooting of William Woodworth determined the use of force was objectively reasonable after he pulled out a gun and aimed it at police, as reported by Boston.com. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office said it accepted those findings and would not pursue criminal charges in that shooting.
Tracking the Numbers Statewide Remains Difficult
Getting a clear statewide picture of these incidents is complicated by a basic gap in record-keeping. Massachusetts does not track officer-involved shootings statewide, according to a CBS Boston report examining the issue. Washington Post data cited by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center recorded two fatal police shootings in Massachusetts in 2024, down from five in each of the two prior years, though CBS Boston’s report found no clear increase or decrease in police-involved shootings across Massachusetts and New Hampshire overall.
Mental illness has long been a factor in a meaningful share of these cases. A 2020 report from GBH found that about 31 percent of victims of fatal police shootings in Massachusetts showed signs of mental illness, underscoring the recurring overlap between crisis response and the state’s deadliest police encounters.
