Report: Deadly force justified in November police shooting in Franklin

FRANKLIN — John Formella, the state’s Attorney General, has concluded the two state troopers who shot and killed Nate Landrebe on Nov. 20, were justified in their use of deadly force.

The incident in question began at 9:28 p.m. on Nov. 19, 2023, when a woman who lived in an apartment in 32 W. Bow St. reported a neighbor had damaged the door to her residence with what she believed to be an ax. When police arrived, they saw damage to her door consistent with a shotgun blast. The woman identified Landrebe as the person who caused the damage.

Police officers tried for about an hour to contact Landrebe, who refused to open his door or leave his apartment. While attempting to convince Landrebe to answer their requests, they heard gunshots come from his apartment, and at 10:45 p.m. the State Police SWAT team was called to respond to the scene.

SWAT officers surrounded the building and took strategic positions around Landrebe’s apartment. In particular, two state troopers, armed with rifles, positioned themselves on a wooded hillside directly behind the building, which gave them a vantage point to the rear of Landrebe’s apartment.

The standoff lasted about five hours, during which many attempts were made to contact Landrebe and urge him to surrender to police. Those attempts included the use of a loudspeaker, as well as hundreds of calls and more than two dozen text messages to his cell phone. Though Landrebe answered some of the calls, he never left the apartment. Officers also reported hearing several gunshots coming from inside the apartment, and could sometimes see Landrebe inside, carrying a long-barreled weapon.

Around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 20, smoke began to come from the building. As the fire grew, Landrebe still refused to leave. Instead, he moved to the rear of the apartment and broke out a window. In addition to two troopers positioned on the hillside, who were each about 50 feet away from Landrebe at that point, there was a third trooper who was positioned just several yards from the window. The trooper nearest the window commanded Landrebe to disarm and exit the apartment through the front door. Instead, according to the report from the Attorney General's Office, Landrebe fired his shotgun out the window twice.

Both troopers positioned on the hillside, Aramus Caraballo and James Powers, fired back and struck Landrebe, who exited the window — either from a fall or jump — then collapsed on the ground. He was dead when SWAT team members reached his body. A loaded shotgun was later found inside the broken back window.

The report stated that subsequent investigation revealed that Landrebe was a recovering methamphetamine addict, and had relapsed shortly before the incident. He had also told an acquaintance paranoid thoughts regarding his neighbors. Landrebe had been convicted of stalking in January 2023, and that conviction made it illegal for him to own a firearm.

No one else was injured in the incident, and firefighters were able to extinguish the fire, though it had done significant damage to the apartment building.

An autopsy found that Landrebe died due to seven gunshot wounds, six of which were pass-through wounds located on his cheek, back, thigh, both forearms and left wrist. His blood was found to contain amphetamine and methamphetamine.

The report from the attorney general found there was no cause to charge Caraballo or Powers, the officers who used deadly force against Landrebe, and their decision to fire upon him was a justifiable response to a credible threat, especially considering the proximity of the trooper who was positioned several yards from the window where Landrebe had fired his shotgun.

“The situation created by Mr. Landrebe and faced by the law enforcement officers who encountered him required immediate response, in order to eliminate that active and ongoing threat to life. That is what the firing officers did — respond to Mr. Landrebe’s actual use of illegal deadly force, by using lawful and appropriate defensive deadly force,” reads the report. “That is justified use of deadly force under the law.”