NEWPORT, R.I. — Newly released body-worn camera video captures the chaotic moments when Newport police officers boarded a stolen 40-foot sailboat in Newport Harbor and came under immediate gunfire from inside the cabin, leaving one officer grazed and the suspect dead.
The Aug. 26 incident unfolded just after 9 a.m. in the harbor’s northern anchorage. The Newport harbormaster had been alerted the day before to a missing vessel and spotted a boat matching the description of the Pathfinder, a 1968 Hinckley yawl reported stolen from Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, New Jersey. The name had been scraped from the stern, the engine was running, and a man on the bow appeared to be raising the anchor.
The harbormaster ferried four Newport officers alongside the vessel. Bodycam footage shows officers with weapons drawn as they approached and boarded. “Sir, stay on the deck!” an officer is heard shouting. The man, later identified as 27-year-old Brendan Norris of Newport, ignored the commands and rushed below.
An officer who boarded the bow reported seeing Norris rummaging inside the cabin and spotting a metallic object he believed was a gun barrel. Moments later, a single shot rang out from inside the cabin. Debris struck the officer in the face, and he felt an impact to his right leg. Audio from the bodycam captures an officer yelling that he had been hit, followed by calls to reload as officers opened fire toward the cabin.
The wounded officer, identified in local reports as Jack Billings, can be heard saying he was hit in the leg and urging others to check themselves while still holding position. Officers then entered the cabin and found Norris unresponsive with a severe head injury and a firearm on the ground next to him. He was pronounced dead at the pier. The officer who was grazed was treated at Newport Hospital and released the same day.
Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy released the footage on Oct. 30 as part of a critical incident community debriefing. In the accompanying briefing, Duffy stated that Norris fired the first shot, after which officers discharged their firearms toward the threat. Local reports noted that officers returned fire, striking Norris in the head. All officers who fired their weapons were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a joint investigation with the Rhode Island State Police under the attorney general’s officer-involved shooting protocol.
Norris, a former International Yacht Restoration School student who lived in Newport, was alone on the boat. He had been arrested in the city the previous month on misdemeanor charges of simple assault or battery and disorderly conduct. The owners later recovered the stolen vessel, saying it required extensive repairs from the incident.
The bodycam video, which shows the tight confines of the cabin, the officer’s movement into the hatch under fire, and the immediate aftermath, has drawn significant attention since its release. The investigation into the shooting remains ongoing.
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