AG: State troopers justified in firing 76 shots at Plymouth man

Six New Hampshire State Police troopers were legally justified when they fired 76 gunshots at a Plymouth resident last fall, Attorney General John Formella ruled Thursday.

Kevin Steinfeldt, 58, likely would’ve died from the 13 bullets that struck him. But it was the self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head that killed him, a medical examiner ruled.

The incident came after a 10-hour standoff with police at the Federal House Inn in Plymouth, where Steinfeldt lived and operated the hotel. It all started with a visit from an attorney on Nov. 6, 2024.

A court had ordered Steinfeldt in 2021 to refinance his property as part of divorce proceedings with his ex-wife. Having not done so by the deadline, a court-appointed attorney was instructed to sell the property.

When the attorney and his assistant visited the inn and told Steinfeldt that he could get evicted if he didn’t comply, he got upset. He took them inside, saying he needed to get his phone to take pictures of the court documents they’d brought to show him, according to a report by the attorney general’s office.

Steinfeldt then locked the door and held a gun to the assistant’s head. The two visitors wrestled the gun away from Steinfeldt, who then brandished a meat cleaver at them. They escaped and fled to a nearby business to call police around 2:40 p.m.

Police arrived minutes later, beginning a long standoff. At times, gunshots could be heard from inside the inn. Police made contact with Steinfeldt by phone, but he refused to exit the building or disclose whether he had any more firearms.

Hours later, police obtained search and arrest warrants and a SWAT team rammed multiple doors and deployed tear gas. They soon smelled gasoline.

After five hours of negotiation attempts, Steinfeldt at last began talking with a negotiator on the phone around 10 p.m., saying he was in the basement with a rifle pointed at his chin. He also said he’d attempted to overdose on painkillers.

One trooper repeatedly attempted to explain that they were trying to get him to come out peacefully and that they could go with him to a hospital to get him help.

He started to come out the doorway around 12:47 a.m. on Nov. 7, according to body camera footage, bending over to pick up a pair of shoes while still pointing the rifle at himself.

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One trooper yelled, “He’s got the rifle!” as Steinfeldt shot himself in the head.

Almost simultaneously, six State Police troopers, armed with semiautomatic rifles, fired 76 rounds of ammunition at Steinfeldt over the course of about 10 seconds. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

The next day, a medical examiner ruled that his death was a suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He also had 13 other gunshot wounds and three bullet grazes on his body from the officers’ shots.

He likely would’ve died from those gunshots if not for the self-inflicted one, the medical examiner said, but the hemorrhaging from those was “insufficient” to have caused his death.

The officers who used deadly force were sergeants Michael Cedrone, Stefan Czyzowski, Nicholas Levesque and Noah Sanctuary, and troopers Daniel Roger and Ryan St. Cyr. All work for New Hampshire State Police.

The SWAT team members and state troopers all told investigators that they heard the gunshot and knew it hadn’t come from police because their rifles use silencers, also called suppressors. They said they feared Steinfeldt was shooting at officers and fired their weapons in response.

“Mr. Steinfeldt posed a reasonable, deadly, and imminent threat to the officers who were in his immediate vicinity,” the report states, “as well as nearby police officers and private citizens, which justified the use of deadly defensive force.”

So far this year, seven people have been shot by police in New Hampshire, with two deaths.

Last year, nine individuals were shot in officer-involved incidents, with all but one of those encounters resulting in their death. In every case, the attorney general concluded that the officers’ use of deadly force was legally justified.

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