Shawn Bryan shot and killed Ambrose, then shot Mitchell, his estranged girlfriend, and killed himself within 8 minutes.
SPRINGFIELD — In hindsight, Shawn Bryan’s final text messages smacked of foreboding.
“I guess I gotta ask God for forgiveness,” the last one read.
It is unclear precisely when Bryan – who shot and killed Springfield Police Officer Kevin E. Ambrose June 4, 2012, then shot his estranged girlfriend and killed himself within eight minutes – sent the message, as the time stamp is skewed. There is no question it was the last of dozens of outgoing messages sent that day.
Ambrose’s death was the first of a Springfield police officer in the line of duty since the 1980s. It rocked the department, influenced changes in policy, ripped apart the lives of at least two families and caused a ripple of retirements among the ranks.
According to the series of messages sent from Bryan’s cellphone obtained by The Republican and MassLive.com through a Freedom of Information Act request, the last several showed a disgruntled ex and simmering New York City prison guard who police later learned came to town with a fully loaded Glock semiautomatic handgun and extra rounds.
“Yo, kid I’m gonna shoot this bitch!” he said in one message to an unidentified friend earlier that day.
Bryan had traveled from Hempstead, N.Y., one year ago to Charlene Mitchell’s apartment at 90 Lawton St. to pick up his television. The couple had a daughter but the relationship had unraveled, according to hundreds of pages of investigative documents included in the newspaper’s request.
In retrospect, Bryan’s final text messages take on a pall that may have, at the time, seemed like the predictable angst a pair goes through during a break-up.
“It’s amazing how things in life change … from one extreme to another,” he texted Mitchell, continuing:
“In the very beginning u said that u were either gonna regret meeting me or I’m gonna be the worst thing that ever happened to u remember?”
“I guess I’m the worst ever … I guess I gotta ask god for forgiveness.”
Kevin Ambrose Ambrose responded to a call from Mitchell, who informed police she had obtained an emergency restraining order against Bryan by the courts earlier that day. She asked for assistance in serving him and returning some of her ex’s belongings.
According to witness statements, including Mitchell’s, Bryan was calm and friendly with Ambrose as Charlene Mitchell, her aunt, Cynthia Mitchell and Ambrose went up to Charlene Mitchell's apartment. Charlene's Mitchell had the couple’s 1-year-old daughter in her arms.
“I heard them having a friendly conversation and the officer was being very nice,” Charlene Mitchell told police on July 17, 2012, more than a month after she was released from the intensive care unit at a Worcester hospital where she was treated for bullet wounds to the face, elbow and abdomen.
As the group approached the landing, she said the two men were still chatting. They rounded the flights of stairs and she inserted her key into the door, according to her statement.
“As I was opening the door I heard the officer tell Shawn that there was a restraining order on him now. This is the first time that Shawn found out about the restraining order because I never told him and he didn’t know I went to court,” it reads. “Almost immediately, I heard Shawn say: ‘You know what, Charlene?’ and he pushed me through the door.”
Charlene Mitchell She recalled that a struggle began as Bryan tried to force the door shut and she was trying to open it. All the while, Ambrose was throwing all his weight behind it and keeping the door open about a foot, she said.
“Suddenly I heard gunshots. I don’t know how many but I knew it was Shawn firing at the officer; it wasn’t the officer shooting. It all happened very fast. While the shooting was going on the door opened up and I saw the officer on the floor. I knew he had been shot … Shawn was still firing into the hallway, even after I saw the officer on the hall floor,” she wrote.
Police statements say Bryan first fired through the door and likely hit Ambrose’s left arm, and then his right, preventing him from going for his own gun.
Bryan then turned on her and began shooting. He never said a word as he fired, and after begging for their daughter’s life, she never screamed once, she told police.
“When the shooting stopped Shawn stood over me and I played dead. I didn’t move and didn’t say anything. I wanted Shawn to think I was dead. I thought this was my only hope for my daughter and me,” she wrote.
After he left she dug through her purse to find her cellphone and dial 911. Though she couldn’t speak, she left the line open.
According to the documents, the very first police incident report logged within a few hours of the murder and attempted murder deemed them the result of a "Lovers' Quarrel."
Witness Statements Following Kevin Ambrose Shooting by masslive
Ambrose had been serving out his last years well, as a popular cop, still physically fit and with a fairly peaceful beat: Sector I, or Sixteen Acres, where the “heaviest” call he might expect, according to other officers, was ironically, a domestic disturbance. Even immediately prior to the bloodshed, the Mitchell incident didn’t even qualify as that, a police spokesman said.
Police Sgt. John M. Delaney estimated there were triple the average number of retirements within the year after the 36-year veteran was gunned down – around 16 – but that all were longtime members of the force.
Police Commissioner William Fitchet said after the officer's murder, "People who are close to retirement are rethinking the benefits of retiring."
Delaney said that Ambrose responded to the scene alone because the call did not even register as a dispute. He believes Bryan went to Mitchell’s apartment with plans to kill her, and Ambrose got in his way.
“I believe Kevin’s actions saved that woman’s life, and possibly the baby’s,” he said.
Records show the baby girl was briefly taken to the Youth Assessment Center unharmed but with blood-spattered clothing. Police provided her with clean clothing before releasing her to a family member.
Office Debra T. Rooke, who was the second car called in to the scene after several witnesses dialed 911, has been out on leave since the shooting and intends to return to the force around the one-year anniversary, Delaney said.
Reached by phone, Rooke declined to discuss the tragedy.
“I really can’t. For one because I’m a cop; and secondly, it took me almost a year to get over it. I really don’t want to go into it all over again,” she said.
In a special report to the Springfield Detective Bureau, Rooke told her supervisor that she was dispatched to Lawton Street along with Ambrose just before 1 p.m. to assist in informing Bryan of a restraining order against him and amicably return his television.
“At no time was I under the impression that any violence was expected,” she wrote.
Rooke said she first used the rest room at a local credit union and checked the location of the apartment complex. Traveling down Wilbraham Road for a brief time, she realized she was headed in the wrong direction and turned around, according to her report. She also mistakenly cleared her police scanner and took a moment to re-set it, she told her superiors.
“I then exited my cruiser and began to walk to the entrance to 90 Lawton St. At this time I heard a radio transmission state that there were shots fired at this call. I had been on-scene for a couple minutes at this point and had not heard any shots, so I tried to call dispatch to tell them that I had not heard any shots,” Rooke wrote.
Prior to her arrival, residents of the apartment complex told police they heard loud bangs that some attributed to vandals or a physical confrontation between neighbors, according to witness statements. Some knew immediately that what they heard was gunfire.
Police Statements Following Kevin Ambrose Shooting by masslive
“As I started to feed my newborn … I head a piercing scream from the building next door,” one neighbor told police. “I knew it was a female screaming because it was so loud. When I heard the woman scream, I then heard at least five of what sounded like gunshots, and maybe more coming from next door. A few second later I heard another group of at least five gunshots.”
Another witness reported he heard “a scuffle” in the hallway, and shots “that all sounded like they came from the same gun.” There was a pause, and the witness heard “The baby! The baby! My baby!” … and then more gunshots.
Later in her report, Rooke stated that she could not immediately hear the hallmarks of a struggle and proceeded cautiously into the building and up the stairs.
“I started up to the third floor apartments. I could see blood on the floor … I called to (Officer Ambrose) but he did not respond … I did not believe it was safe to approach Off. Ambrose at this time because I believed the shooter was still in the apartment. I backed down the stairs to a point at which I could still observe the door and Off. Ambrose and called dispatch to report that Off. Ambrose was down and request assistance,” Rooke wrote.
The door began to open as Rooke waited for other officers to arrive, she said. At first just a crack, then a little more and she spied Charlene Mitchell and a little girl sitting on the floor next to her mother. Rooke said she assisted in getting Mitchell on a back board and then carried the child out of the apartment.
“Finding Off. Ambrose with his injury was a shocking event for me,” she concluded in her report.
Charlene Mitchell did not respond to attempts to interview her for this story.
One of at least 15 officers who arrived at the scene noted in his report that Officer Ambrose maintained a faint pulse during the ambulance trip to the hospital.
According to the documents, there was a brief search for Bryan, until one neighbor pointed to a car parked outside the complex. Another neighbor later reported he saw Bryan “walking fast” out of Mitchell’s building with a gun in his hand, which Bryan then stuffed into his pants waist. The witness tried to get the license plate. He then heard three shots from within the car.
“I figured he had shot himself,” the witness said.
The same witness guided police to the car as they searched for what they believed may have still been an active shooter.
“(The witness) pointed to a green Honda Accord and said that the shooter was in the Honda. As I looked over towards the parking lot I observed several officers with their firearms out, pointing and shouting out commands to a (black male) in the Honda. As they secured the vehicle they discovered a black male … wounded in the chest area of a gunshot wound."
Affidavit in Support of Application for Search Warrant for Shawn Bryan Car and Cell Phone by masslive
Medics performed CPR on Bryan during the ambulance ride to the hospital after his heart stopped beating, according to one report.
Ambrose and Bryan were pronounced dead at Baystate Medical Center within about 10 minutes of one another, the records state.
Delaney said Ambrose’s response while on scene was “text book.” The only real policy change the shootings have prompted were that targets of restraining orders must be informed of the measure by the courts or police officers, rather than applicants struggling to deliver the news impromptu, as Mitchell was.
Ambrose’s name recently was added to a fallen officers’ memorial wall in Washington, D.C. Family and close friends traveled down to the nation’s capital earlier this month to join in a ceremony featuring President Barack Obama.
Springfield police will commemorate the anniversary of his murder on Tuesday night by deploying officers on the streets in heavy numbers as part of a Blue Knight deployment.
Officers will be conducting walking patrols, and riding bicycles and Piaggo motorized vehicles throughout neighborhoods.
Residents are asked to tie blue ribbons on their porches or place blue lights on display in their property as a show of support for police.
The recurring deployments in years past have been as much a display of a police presence in the city as an opportunity for officers to meet and interact with its residents.
Ambrose, Delaney said, loved meeting and talking to people while out on patrol.
Because of that, Fitchet felt it was a good way to honor his memory and his service to the city with a Blue Knight deployment, Delaney said.
“Kevin was a pro-active police officer. On the anniversary of his death, we’re showing Springfield that we are still out there – just like he would be.”
Longtime Ambrose friend Raymond Muise, who was Ambrose’s partner early in their careers, said the ceremony was a moving one. He added that every officer and retiree should make the trip to the memorial at some point in their lives.
Muise made an etching from the wall and has framed one for his office, and one to be hung on a wall at a little coffee shop in the Wilbraham shops his family opened last year.
He added that he dearly misses Ambrose’s sense of humor and keeps photos and other mementos at his home as well. Ambrose left behind his wife, Carla, two children and a granddaughter.
“Kev’s never far from me,” said Muise, who retired from the force and now heads security at MassMutual. “But, I like to repeat something to myself I read at the memorial: They’re not heroes because of how they died. They’re heroes because of how they lived.”