Kelsey Fitzsimmons Trial: Day One — The Gun, the Direction, and the Officer Who Pulled the Trigger

The Kelsey Fitzsimmons bench trial opened Monday in Essex County Superior Court, and the first day made one thing unmistakably clear: this case is going to be decided by a single disputed fact — the direction a gun was pointing in a bedroom in North Andover on June 30, 2025.

Fitzsimmons, 29, is a North Andover police officer charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. Three officers arrived at her home that day to serve a restraining order from her then-fiancé, Justin Aylaian, which awarded him emergency custody of their four-month-old son and required the surrender of her firearms. Officer Patrick Noonan went upstairs with Fitzsimmons while she packed. Moments later, Noonan shot her in the chest.

Prosecutor James Gubitose told Judge Jeffrey Karp that Fitzsimmons grabbed her service weapon, aimed it directly at Noonan's face, and pulled the trigger. A mechanical failure — the gun had a full magazine but no round chambered — is the only reason Noonan is alive. She then performed a tap rack, loaded a round, and raised the weapon again. Noonan fired twice. The second shot hit.

Defense attorney Timothy Bradl told Judge Karp his client reached for that gun with only one intention: to kill herself. She was in a mental health crisis — postpartum depression, a hospitalization months earlier, and an afternoon that stripped her of her baby and her career in one blow. The gun was at her own head, Bradl argued, not aimed at Noonan. The physical position of the weapon after she fell supports that, the defense contends. And the words Noonan used in those final seconds — "Kelsey, no" — are not, Bradl argued, the words of a man staring at a gun aimed at his face.

Noonan testified Monday. Cross-examination begins Tuesday. Aylaian also testified, and left the stand with questions about his own credibility after the defense established he is currently on administrative leave from the North Andover Fire Department.

No jury. Judge Karp decides.

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