Officers Involved in August Fatal Shooting Will Not Face Charges as Inquest Concludes

A district judge found that the actions of the Cambridge police officers who fatally shot a man in August were “objectively reasonable,” at the conclusion of a judicial inquest process, according to a Friday announcement by Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.

The inquest included a one-day court hearing, with testimony from two witnesses and 38 exhibits. Broadbent considered a trove of now publicly released evidence — including body-worn camera footage from responding officers, interviews with each officer, and surveillance video from surrounding buildings. A recording by ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system that has come under scrutiny in the city, was also released with the findings.

The inquest report names three officers involved in the shooting: James T. Nestor, Donald R. Conrad, and David Kerns.

Officers responded to a report of suspicious individuals in a Central Square parking lot just after 8 p.m. on Aug. 21, and encountered 64-year-old William Woodworth exiting his vehicle after arriving at the scene.

Footage from the officers’ body cameras shows Woodworth stepping out of the car and retrieving a firearm from underneath the driver’s seat. He ignored officer commands to put the gun down. Kerns then “engaged in a physical struggle” with Woodworth after he pointed his gun at Kerns, a police trainee, who was standing a few feet away in front of two civilians.

After struggling with Woodworth for a few seconds, Nestor and Conrad fired seven shots, according to the inquest report. Officers administered medical aid after shots were fired, but Woodworth was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Ryan. He died from five gunshot wounds, court documents showed.

“The entire time elapsed from the beginning of Officer Conrad’s interaction with Woodworth to the shooting was less than 60 seconds,” the inquest report read.

Three days after the shooting, Ryan’s office requested a judicial inquest into the shooting, part of their standard practice for officer-involved shootings. The fact-finding process began on Sep. 9 — and Ryan pledged to release as much information as possible, including the body camera footage, at its conclusion.

Less than a month later, District Court Judge Holly V. Broadbent, concluded that “any reasonable officer” would have believed that Woodworth posed an imminent danger to both officers and civilians. The inquest does not determine guilt, but Ryan’s office wrote they would not pursue criminal charges for the officers involved.

“The court finds that a reasonably prudent person would not find that the actions of Officers Nestor and Conrad make them criminally responsible for the fatal shooting of Mr. Woodworth. The Court finds their actions were justified,” Broadbent wrote in her report.

Woodworth’s shooting is the first officer-involved shooting Cambridge has seen in nearly three years. The last occurred in 2023 when officer Liam McMahon fatally shot 20-year-old Sayed Faisal, who was experiencing a mental health crisis and was armed with a knife. An inquest was launched into Faisal’s shooting in February 2023, but findings were not released to the public until that October.

The inquest into Faisal’s shooting spanned four days in court and included testimonies from 29 witnesses, 53 exhibits of evidence, and a visit to the location of Faisal’s killing. The judge found McMahon’s actions to be “objectively reasonable,” and prosecutors did not pursue charges — echoing the results of the inquest into Woodworth’s shooting.

In the wake of Faisal’s death, the city commissioned an outside report to reassess the department’s policies and make recommendations on reforms for the force. Its recommendations included sending mental health professionals to jointly respond with police, and implementing body-worn cameras departmentwide.

The release of the body-worn camera footage is long awaited by city leaders, including Police Commissioner Pauline E. Wells and City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05, who called for the footage to be released in the aftermath of the shooting. This is the first shooting involving Cambridge officers since the department rolled out body cameras last April.

In Ryan’s announcement of the conclusion of the inquest, she also included 11 police reports and incident logs documenting Woodworth’s prior encounters with law enforcement, showing he had previously been arrested for possession of a dangerous weapon and has a restraining order filed against him by a family member.

Broadbent’s report also notes that the responding officers “immediately recognized” Woodworth after arriving at the scene, citing two prior encounters. According to the report, Conrad had responded to both previous encounters, finding him in possession of a firearm during one and a machete during the other.

At the conclusion of the inquest into Woodworth’s shooting, Ryan filed a certificate accepting Broadbent’s findings with the Massachusetts Superior Court and confirming her office would not bring charges against the officers, formally bringing the investigation to a close.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.