Intense body camera footage captured the moment Rhode Island police officers got into a fatal shootout with a suspected sailboat bandit who had fired at them aboard the luxury vessel he stole from a New Jersey marina.
Brendan Norris was spotted aboard the missing Pathfinder – a 1968 Hinkley Bermuda 40 – moored in Rhode Island’s Newport Marina as four Newport officers hightailed towards the vessel on Aug. 26.
Norris, 27, was above deck pulling up an anchor with the engines running before he made a daring escape below deck, according to video shared by the Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy.
“Sir, stay on the deck,” one cop shouted as he pointed his gun at the sailboat.
Two officers hopped onto the boat when Norris fired at least one shot, striking one cop in the leg.
Police unloaded their guns in the direction of Norris in a barrage of bullets that lasted 19 seconds.
During the shooting, two of the officers dove from the stolen boat onto the harbormaster’s boat to escape the gunfire.
“Shots fired, shots fired. One hit,” one officer yelled into his radio.
The wounded officer had been struck in the face by shrapnel and in the leg by one of Norris’ shots, Duffy said.
The officer jumped down to the cabin’s entrance where he discovered the mortally wounded Norris.
“I’ve got a suspect down. I have my eyes on him,” the officer relays over his radio.
“Who’s been hit?” another officer asked repeatedly.
“I’ve been hit in the leg, relax,” the officer replies as he climbs into the cabin. “Everybody chill.”
Norris was pronounced dead at the scene from a severe gunshot wound to the head.
The officer was hospitalized in stable condition for his leg wound but has since returned to work, Duffy said.
The modern-day pirate had allegedly stolen Pathfinder during a late-night heist at the Liberty Harbor Marina in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan on Aug. 22.
Norris was captured on security cameras lurking around the New Jersey marina for roughly an hour and a half before commandeering the docked boat.
He voyaged with the boat down the Upper Bay and under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge before allegedly disabling the transponder system that helps track the vessel.
The Pathfinder was reported missing by its owner, Jim Bonomo, after he arrived to the marina with his wife on Aug. 23 to find his boat that he had had for 10 years gone.
Bonomo had alerted marinas along the East Coast to keep an eye out for Pathfinder.
The harbormaster in Newport noticed the vessel matching the description of the missing Pathfinder but its name had been scraped off the stern.
The harbormaster called police about Norris, leading to the confrontation in the harbor just after 9 a.m.