FARMINGDALE ( AP) — Investigators say a man who started an armed confrontation before being killed by a state police tactical team member was angry after a friend rebuffed his request to play cards.
Investigators said that before his death, 41-year-old Paul Fritze locked a man in a basement and fired shots into the door of a bedroom where a woman was hiding. Both managed to escape before the police standoff last Sept. 24.
The attorney general concluded that Trooper Timothy Black met the legal requirements for using deadly force when he fired a single shot that killed Fritze, who’d pointed his gun at an armored truck used by police.
Authorities say Fritze’s previous convictions include commandeering a bus at gunpoint in New Jersey and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
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