The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office has now named the thirteen separate law enforcement officers who discharged their weapons at 38-year-old Matthew Masse during the April 4 standoff in Raymond, a confrontation that ended when Masse took his own life in the woods after an hours-long manhunt. The preliminary finding, released this weekend, concludes the officers were legally justified because Masse fired on them first, twice, before turning a weapon on himself.
According to reporting by New Hampshire Public Radio, the chief medical examiner has ruled Masse’s death a suicide, finding that the fatal wound was self-inflicted to the chin. Shrapnel from officer fire struck Masse’s left elbow, but investigators say no officer round killed him. For residents who lived through the shelter-in-place order that gripped Raymond on the afternoon of April 4, the new detail that more than a dozen officers ultimately exchanged fire with Masse underscores just how dangerous the manhunt became before it ended.
How April 4 Unfolded on Ham Road
The encounter began as a domestic disturbance call. Raymond police and surrounding agencies responded to a residence on Ham Road after a report that Masse had fired a rifle at members of his own family. When officers arrived, the situation deteriorated almost immediately. The AG’s office says Masse opened fire on responding officers, wounding a Nottingham officer in the exchange. Fremont Sergeant Rui Barbosa returned fire in defense of himself and other officers on scene. That was the first use of deadly force in the incident, and it remains the only round of gunfire that struck Masse during the initial confrontation.
Masse then fled into the wooded terrain that surrounds the Ham Road area, prompting one of the largest multi-agency searches in recent Rockingham County memory. State Police, local departments from across the southern tier, and tactical units converged on the town. Residents within a wide radius were placed under shelter-in-place orders. Schools alerted parents. The state’s mobile alert system pushed warnings to phones across Raymond and adjoining towns. The search stretched on for hours as officers worked grid patterns through dense woodlands, drainage ditches, and outbuildings.
When officers eventually located Masse in the woods that afternoon, they called out for him to surrender. Instead, according to the AG’s preliminary report, he opened fire on law enforcement a second time. Twelve officers from elite tactical teams returned fire. Moments later, as the gunfight broke off, Masse turned a weapon on himself.
The Officers Identified
The Attorney General’s preliminary disclosure represents an unusually large list of officers involved in a single use-of-force review. Five members of the Southern New Hampshire Special Operations Unit, a regional SWAT-style team drawn from suburban departments, discharged their weapons. Those officers, according to the AG, are Michael Lambert and Kevin Manuele of the Merrimack Police Department, Greg Iworsky and Daniel Boudreau of the Windham Police Department, and Nicholas Fiorentio of the Bedford Police Department.
Seven members of the New Hampshire State Police Special Weapons and Tactics Unit also fired their weapons during the final encounter. The AG identified them as Sergeants Michael Cedrone, Nicholas Cyr, and Stefan Czyzowski, and Troopers Tyler Dodds, Kevin Dobson, Matthew Dushame, and Jacob Hunt. Fremont Sergeant Rui Barbosa, who returned fire during the initial confrontation on Ham Road, brings the total to thirteen.
The Department of Justice has a standing policy of reviewing every use of deadly force by a New Hampshire law enforcement officer, even in cases where the subject is not killed or seriously wounded by police gunfire. Investigators have yet to release their full final report, which typically includes ballistic analysis, body-worn camera review, and timelines reconstructed from radio traffic and dispatch logs.
A Second Officer-Involved Shooting Disclosed
The same release from the Attorney General’s office also identified the Ashland police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Demitri Zimmer of Laconia during a separate incident on April 20. That officer is Sergeant Nicholas Shannahan. Zimmer had exchanged gunfire with police during a traffic stop, wounding Ashland officer Mason Dalphonse before being killed. Both cases remain under formal review, but the disclosure of officer names is a procedural milestone in New Hampshire’s deadly-force investigation framework.
Family Cites a Mental Health Struggle
Matthew Masse’s relatives told reporters in the days after the shooting that he had been struggling with his mental health in the months leading up to April 4. Public safety advocates have repeatedly pointed to gaps in New Hampshire’s mental health response infrastructure, particularly in rural towns where mobile crisis teams may be hours away. The Granite State has been wrestling with how to better integrate crisis intervention into front-line policing, an issue Gov. Kelly Ayotte has emphasized in pushing for the state to fund wraparound mental health services for children and to address chronic shortfalls in adult psychiatric care.
The Raymond case is unlikely to settle the broader debate about deadly force, mental health, and rural response capacity. But it does add detail to an incident that, for hours on a Friday afternoon in April, brought a quiet New Hampshire town to a standstill.
What Comes Next
The Attorney General will release the final use-of-force report once the investigation is complete, including the medical examiner’s full findings, ballistic and scene-mapping work, and any officer interviews. Even with a preliminary finding of justification, the final report will go through line-by-line review with the involved agencies and is expected to be made public. The Masse and Zimmer cases are the latest in a string of officer-involved shootings the state has reviewed in recent months, joining a docket that also includes pending civil matters such as the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s New Boston police liability decision and the wrongful death judgment in the Adam Montgomery–Harmony Sorey case.
For Raymond, the long-term work is community recovery. Town officials have signaled interest in reviewing how local agencies coordinated with state assets during the manhunt and how communication reached residents on Ham Road, where homes are tucked into deeply wooded lots that complicate both response and notification. A formal after-action review has not been announced.
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