One dead in Lynn after struggle for cop’s gun

By O’Ryan Johnson
Thursday, October 7, 2010

A man apparently committed suicide with a detail cop’s gun after the two struggled for control of the weapon at a Verizon work site outside Lynn City Hall this morning, police said.


Witnesses told police a Verizon worker may have saved the officer by trying to pull the man off him.

Police said an apparently deranged man who was not working at the site attacked the officer, grabbing his gun. They struggled, and the man broke free with the gun, then shot himself, Lynn Police Lt. William Sharpe said, citing witness accounts.

The officer was also injured, though not by gunfire, and is now on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, Sharpe said.

Sharpe said investigators are questioning several “direct witnesses.”