Body-worn camera footage from fatal officer shooting released
A preliminary status report about Wednesday’s officer-involved shooting documents how officers engaged with the victim and the residents of the household.

Garrett Curtis, Staff Photographer
Body-worn camera footage released in the state’s preliminary report on last week’s officer-involved shooting shows the order of events that led to two injured and one killed, and the emotional distress of those spectating.
Aaron Freeman, 35, was killed early in the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 29, in a shootout with police officers that left two West Haven cops injured. Officers from the West Haven Police Department and New Haven’s multi-jurisdictional Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force entered an apartment where Freeman was staying on Grand Avenue just after 5:30 a.m. that morning to execute a search and seizure warrant, according to a preliminary status report released by the Connecticut Office of the Inspector General.
An ensuing exchange of fire involving Freeman, two West Haven officers and a task force officer from the Waterbury Police Department left Freeman with gunshot wounds to his torso and limbs, and the two West Haven officers with injuries to their calf and leg, respectively. The officers received treatment at Yale-New Haven Hospital and both have already been released. Freeman succumbed to his injuries.
The footage released on Tuesday shows police officers arriving at the apartment before sunrise. “Police with a search warrant, come to the door,” West Haven Officer Robert Rappa yelled, while knocking on the front door. Upon entering the apartment, the officers encountered an adult woman, who cried, “My baby, my baby.”
Rappa pursued Freeman — who backed into a bedroom — with his gun held in front of him. With Freeman’s body partially obscured by the half-closed door, Rappa called out, “Show me your hands.” The first shot was then fired at 5:36 a.m. Swearing, and three more gunshots, are then audible from Rappa’s body-worn camera footage as the officer ducked into a bathroom.
According to the preliminary status report, Rappa was shot in the calf. From the apartment’s front room, officers yelled out for him to “keep talking” as the situation progressed.
Martin Scanlon, a Waterbury police officer on the Drug Enforcement task force, is seen hiding in the stairwell in the footage. He exchanged gunfire with Freeman from the foot of the stairs.
Officers at the apartment then waited for support from the West Haven Police Department’s Special Response Team to arrive, according to police reports referenced in the preliminary status summary.
West Haven Police Sergeant Joseph Riehl, who arrived at the apartment with the Special Response Team around 6:20 a.m., carried a shield, which partially obscured the footage from his body-worn camera. Riehl was struck in his upper leg by a bullet through the wall of the room Freeman was in, the report says. Riehl returned fire.
The preliminary status report states that the State Police Central District Major Crime Squad “recovered a firearm near Freeman’s body.”
At the time of the shooting, a 32-year-old woman, an 8-year-old girl and a 52-year-old man were all present in the apartment, New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson said at a press conference last week. Jacobson and Mayor Justin Elicker met with the girl and the older man just hours after the shooting, the chief said.
The footage shows the adult woman and young girl in audible distress. In Rappa’s footage, the child is heard crying loudly. In the footage from Scanlon’s body-worn camera, the older man is heard shouting, “that’s my granddaughter.”
The West Haven Police Department did not respond to inquiries on Tuesday about the status of the two officers implicated in the shooting. Last week, the department posted on its Facebook account about the two injured officers, thanking Mission BBQ and an “anonymous citizen who had seven pizzas delivered to the police department” after hearing about the officers who were shot.
Since stating that Freeman “succumbed to his injuries” in a Thursday post, the account has not mentioned Freeman.
On Monday, the Waterbury Police Department released a statement acknowledging the preliminary status report’s release.
“We are thankful that Detective Scanlon was unharmed and wish the injured officers a full and swift recovery from this extremely dangerous situation,” Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo stated.
A longer-term investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the State Office of the Inspector General, West Haven Police Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, New Haven Police Department, Waterbury Police Department and New Haven’s State Attorney’s Office.
The West Haven Police Department is headquartered at 200 Saw Mill Road in West Haven.
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