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Back Article published Mar 23, 2007
Former cop charged with fabricating attack
BARRE – Former Northfield police officer David Reed may have been suicidal when he stabbed himself twice in the shoulder at his Barre home and then told police he was attacked by a stranger, according to statements made in court papers.
Earlier that day, 27-year-old Reed had told Northfield Police Chief Jeffrey Shaw he had passed his physical fitness test at the Vermont Police Academy, a requirement for maintaining his position on the force. But Shaw had been told by academy staff that Reed had not passed the test.
Reed was given another chance to take the running portion of the test the next day, and Shaw said if Reed didn't pass the test he would have to let him go, according to court records.
After stabbing himself in the shoulder with a kitchen knife later that day, Reed put the knife in the dishwasher and turned it on. Then he walked around the house looking for a towel, when he decided to shoot himself, according to police.
When Reed headed out to his car to get his gun to "finish himself," he saw his neighbors talking in their driveway, and that's when he told them he had been attacked and to call police.
On Jan. 30, emergency personnel responded to Reed's Summer St. home at approximately 12:40 p.m. on a report of a stabbing of a police officer.
Reed told his neighbors and police that he was loading up his car in the driveway, and when he went back into his home there was a stranger who hit him over the head and stabbed him "at least twice," according to police.
Reed was adamant he had not seen his attacker, but said that he thought it was a large male wearing a black sweatshirt.
Reed was treated for superficial wounds and during police interviews, some of Reed's neighbors expressed fear of being attacked next, that the neighborhood was no longer safe.
Reed maintained his story of an unidentified attacker until Feb. 7, when he agreed to take a polygraph test. During the course of the polygraph test Reed took at the Middlesex State Police barracks, he eventually told the true story of what happened that day.
Reed's parents told police he had been viewing suicide Web sites and that they had been concerned about him.
In Vermont District Court in Barre Thursday Reed pleaded innocent to the misdemeanor charge of giving false information to police, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of six months or a $500 fine.
Possibly the worst consequence for Reed, though, is that he lost his job as a police officer in Northfield. Reed,
who failed the physical fitness test at the Police Academy four or five times previously, has worked as a police officer for Barre Town and Berlin.
