The Boston Herald
GREENLAND, N.H. — The beloved police chief killed last week when Granite State cops raided a Post Road home hunting for prescription pills and cocaine likely saved another officer’s life that fatal night, pulling the injured cop from the home’s porch and into a nearby cruiser before jumping back into the deadly fire fight, his successor said yesterday.
‘It was really important for me to make sure that everybody knew what a hero he was,’ said new Greenland police Chief Tara Laurent, sworn in just hours after her predecessor, Chief Michael Maloney, was killed Thursday in the aborted early evening drug raid.
She said Maloney, 48, had dragged Newmarket Detective Scott Kukesh to safety after he was shot in the chest, helping to get Kukesh quickly to the hospital, where he continues to recover.
‘He tells me over and over and over again how much he owes to Chief Maloney because he saved his life,’ Laurent said.
Authorities say they continue to investigate the shooting that has rattled the calm of this seaside community.
Three days before the shooting, police filed for a ‘no knock’ warrant of Cullen Mutrie’s home, where they said he and his girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, had been dealing up to 500 Oxycodone pills every ‘few days.’
Unsealed yesterday in Portsmouth District Court, the warrant reveals that police knew Mutrie, 29, possibly had weapons and surveillance cameras at his home, where he is accused of shooting Maloney in the head and injuring four other officers before killing Tibbetts and himself.
Mutrie ‘usually had a firearm under the front seat of his BMW or on his ankle,’ the warrant states. Police were also prepared to arrest Tibbetts on drug charges after they say she sold $250 worth of Oxycodone pills to a police informant in January.
The Herald reported last week that Greenland cops had confiscated 105 items from Mutrie’s home in July 2010, including dozens of boxes of ammunition, multiple shotguns and rifles, and even a submachine gun, but never filed gun-related charges against him.
‘That will certainly be something we will look into,’ said Jane Young of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, who’s leading the probe into the shooting.
Laurent said she was preparing for an emotional week, starting today with Maloney’s wake and then tomorrow, when thousands are expected to attend a memorial service at Hampton’s Winnacunnet High School honoring the fallen chief.
‘There will be no ceremony that’s big enough to really celebrate Chief’s Maloney life,’ Laurent said, noting Maloney leaves big shoes to fill.
‘The biggest,’ she said.
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