An off-duty Massachusetts police officer, on trial for allegedly pulling a firearm on a colleague, recounted in court on Wednesday how a brief interaction with fellow officers changed her life forever. These officers had been dispatched to serve her with a restraining order.
Kelsey Fitzsimmons, an officer with the North Andover Police Department, shared the harrowing experience of being shot in the chest by fellow officer Patrick Noonan, which resulted in a punctured lung.
She recalled the terror of feeling as though she was drowning, as her lung rapidly filled with blood, while her colleagues fought to save her life.
Fitzsimmons faces charges of assault for allegedly pointing a gun at the officers. However, she contends that her actions were driven by a desire to end her life, spurred by severe postpartum depression.
“I wanted to be alone with my firearm and end my life,” Fitzsimmons testified during her assault trial in Lawrence. “I came to that decision after realizing that I had lost everything in a mere 15-second exchange with my coworker.”
At 29, Fitzsimmons—a mother who appeared in court wearing black-framed glasses and a cream-colored blazer, her hair tied back in a low bun—detailed how three officers arrived at her North Andover residence on June 30, 2025. They delivered news of a restraining order filed by her fiancé, Justin Aylaian, which temporarily stripped her of custody of their infant son, Caden.
Fitzsimmons described how she was blindsided by Aylaian — a firefighter — taking the drastic measure against her and said as she was packing for her son it set in that her whole world was crashing down on her.
“Justin just broke up with me via restraining order. We have a wedding in four months. Caden is not going to be with me for two weeks. That’s an eternity for a mom,” she said as she choked up.
The restraining order even dictated that her dog should be kept away from her, she explained.
“My baby gone, my fiancé, my dog and my house and I knew it was going to be my job too. Whatever I was accused of wasn’t good because there was a restraining order,” she said.
She also realized she wouldn’t be able to afford the house she’d shared with Aylaian on a single salary and she wouldn’t have time as a new mom to work lucrative overtime hours.
The rookie cop, who’d only been on the job for two years, had been scheduled to return to work the next month.
She said in the moments after deciding she would shoot herself, she repeatedly attempted to get the three cops away from her so they wouldn’t be harmed or involved.
Minutes later, Fitzsimmons grabbed her service weapon, as Noonan stood nearby on the stairs, and pointed it toward her head, pulling the trigger. But the gun didn’t go off because there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber.
Noonan “had just walked in when I pulled the trigger on myself,” she testified. “With the gun pointing at my head, he said, ‘Kelsey, no! Kelsey, no!”
She said when the gun didn’t go off she started to say the word, “f–k” — and then Noonan shot her.
“I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t breathe,” she recounted. “Why, Why did you do that?” she said she asked Noonan who held her hand.
“It hurts, it hurts,” she recalled saying.
“It felt like I was choking, like I was drowning,” she said, noting the bullet punctured her lung.
Inside the ambulance and in the hospital she kept telling people, “I’m a f–king idiot. I tried to kill myself with an unloaded gun.”
Fitzsimmons said at first she fought when medics attempted to give her an oxygen mask because she didn’t want to be saved but she eventually relented.
She recalled getting flown by helicopter to Mass General Hospital where she would spend the next 53 days recovering from the gunshot wound, that required five surgeries to repair.
Noonan testified on Monday and Tuesday that Fitzsimmons pointed her gun at him and pulled the trigger, but he wasn’t wounded thanks to the gun jamming.
He said Fitzsimmons then “tap racked” the firearm twice, finally getting a bullet in the chamber and so he fired off two rounds until she dropped the gun and fell to the floor.
Noonan also claimed he believed Fitzsimmons was shooting at him so she could get downstairs and kill Aylaian — a statement that drew a stare-down from Fitzsimmons in the courtroom Tuesday.
Fitzsimmons claimed Wednesday she “didn’t want to involve anybody,” in her suicide.
“I wanted to take my own life. I never pointed a gun at a fellow police officer. It never happened,” she insisted.
Aylaian testified he sought the restraining order because he was afraid Fitzsimmons might harm herself or their son.
Meanwhile, Fitzsimmons’ lawyers have claimed she was suffering from severe postpartum depression after having given birth just four months earlier.
Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday after the judge visits Fitzsimmons’ home.
Last week, Fitzsimmons decided to have Judge Jeffrey Karp decide whether she is guilty, instead of facing a jury of her peers.
The case will likely rise and fall on how credible the judge found Noonan and Fitzsimmons’ testimony since they were the only two upstairs at the time of the shooting and since both have opposite accounts of the confrontation.
Fitzsimmons has pleaded not guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling.
If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
