AUGUSTA (AP) – Two sheriff’s deputies and a state police officer were legally justified in using deadly force against a man in the town of Harmony, Attorney General Steven Rowe said Thursday.

The officers were responding to a 911 call from Daniel McDowell, who claimed that he had murdered a hitchhiker and was holding another hostage early on Feb. 16. All three fired when McDowell started walking from his parked truck toward them, pointed a shotgun in their direction and ignored commands to drop the weapon, officials said.

A later lab analysis determined McDowell’s blood-alcohol content to have been 0.2 percent, or more than twice the legal limit for driving.

A suicide note and a handwritten “last will and testament” were found in his truck.

The investigation indicated that Trooper Bernard Brunette and Somerset County deputies Michael Ross and Ritchie Putnam believed that their lives were threatened and that they believed deadly force was necessary to protect themselves on Route 150, where McDowell had parked his truck, Roe said.

Audio from the camera mounted in Brunette’s cruiser indicated McDowell began walking toward the troopers about a minute after the trooper called out, “Sir, put the gun down!”

After two more warnings, shots rang out at 1:32 a.m. The three officers fired 19 shots from a distance of about 140 feet, officials said.

McDowell died from a single gunshot wound to the chest; another shot penetrated the barrel of his shotgun, according to the report.

McDowell, 21, of Harmony, had a history of being suicidal. Somerset County officials had been called to McDowell’s home earlier in the year in response to a suicide attempt.

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