State troopers were legally justified in fatally shooting a 57-year-old man with a criminal history during a motor vehicle stop in Keene, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office determined Thursday.
On Aug. 12, 2025, after the Keene Police Department obtained a search warrant for David Ward and his vehicle based on probable cause that he was trafficking narcotics and carrying a firearm, a standoff lasting six hours ended when state troopers shot Ward multiple times.
The autopsy revealed four gunshot wounds to his head, neck and upper back, which caused lethal injuries to his upper and middle spinal cord. The medical examiner ruled the manner of death a homicide.
The state police who fired their weapons were Sergeant Noah Sanctuary, Nicholas Levesque and Aramus Caraballo. Troopers Matthew Dushame and Jacob Hunt also fired at Ward.
The standoff began at 2:45 p.m., when Keene police attempted a felony motor vehicle stop in the parking lot of the TD Bank at 194 West Street. Ward refused to get out of the vehicle or follow commands.
“I’m not coming out of this unless I’m on a stretcher,” Ward said, according to the report. “I know I’m going away for the rest of my life. I don’t care about my life — it’s over.”
His front-seat passenger eventually exited and surrendered, and she confirmed that Ward had a loaded semi-automatic handgun.
Throughout the negotiations, the report states Ward smoked illicit drugs from a glass pipe inside the vehicle. He said he would not return to prison and threatened to commit suicide by forcing police to shoot him.
Toxicological testing revealed that Ward had cocaine and its metabolites in his system at the time of his death.
The report also points to Ward’s extensive criminal record that made the interaction even more challenging. He is convicted of several narcotics-related felonies, as well as criminal threatening, simple assault, witness tampering, burglary and robbery. It also cites a 1998 armed standoff in which he tried to shoot a Keene police officer.
Shots fired
After New Hampshire State Police arrived and relieved Keene officers, a drone and a tactical robot were sent to look inside the vehicle. Officers learned that Ward was gripping the gun in his right hand. The camera feed showed that at times he pointed the weapon under his own chin before turning the barrel outward again, the report states.
When troopers warned Ward that tear gas would be introduced and staying inside would become uncomfortable, he said police were pressing “the wrong buttons.”
After about six hours of negotiation, tear gas was deployed inside the car, and then another.
Then Ward made his intentions clear and lunged out of this vehicle with the gun still in his hand.
“Ok, I’m coming out. When I come out, I’m going to make you shoot me,” Ward said, according to the report.
Levesque told investigators he feared Ward was moving into position not to surrender but to open fire on officers, and that he saw Ward as an imminent threat.
He fired one shot at Ward’s head and a second toward the general location of Ward’s torso in the vehicle.
Hunt fired approximately four rounds. Caraballo fired his rifle four times.
Dushame, a use-of-force instructor, fired three to four rounds, paused to reassess, then fired three to four more.
Dushame told investigators that “an action by a person beats a reaction every time.” He said that because the drone and robot operators had reported that Ward was actively holding the pistol, Dushame said Ward could have lowered the weapon and fired at officers in a fraction of a second.
“Faced with a non-compliant, drug-impaired, and armed suspect who had just explicitly threatened to shoot people and who was rapidly advancing from cover, the five troopers were forced to make split-second judgments,” the report states.
In 2025, nine individuals were shot in officer-involved incidents, with three of those encounters resulting in their death. In every case, the attorney general concluded that the officers’ use of deadly force was legally justified.
