Police: Greece officer fired 17 shots in fatal shooting of 81-year-old man

A man was shot and killed by police in a Greece neighborhood early Thursday.

Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan said officers were summoned to a Betwood Lane residence at 2:09 a.m., after a man called 911 to say "very succinctly" that he planned to kill his wife.

Officer Jeffrey Fraser, the first officer on scene, parked near the corner of Betwood Lane and Northwood Drive, and was approached by Robert Litolff, 81, who was carrying a rifle outside his Betwood Lane residence, Phelan said.

Fraser directed Litolff to drop the long gun. Litolff refused and pointed the weapon at Fraser, Phelan said. Fraser fired 17 shots, striking Litolff twice — once in the foot and once in the chest. Fraser was not physically injured.

Phelan said Litolff died at the scene. His body was taken to the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

Fraser issued "multiple commands" for Litolff to drop the rifle. Several neighbors said they heard the commands, Phelan said.

Phelan said Litolff, a U.S. Army veteran, was holding a .22-caliber Marlin rifle and the rifle was later determined to be unloaded.

Phelan said it appeared that the man's wife was asleep in the couple's shared home at the time of the shooting and was unaware of his intentions. Officers have been called to the residence previously, Phelan said, "but for nothing substantial."

The Litolffs have lived in the home since 1983, Phelan said.

Phelan said he could not guess why the man refused to drop the weapon or what he had planned to do early Thursday.

"The one thing I may never have is an understanding of why it happened," Phelan said. "I can't explain what the motivation of that person was."

Phelan added that the rifle was unloaded, "so if that goes to motivation at all, that may help. But I can't tell you what he was thinking."

Fraser was placed on administrative leave, a standard practice after an officer is involved in a shooting. "It's a traumatic event," Phelan said. "No one comes to work wanting to do that."

Additional officers arrived at the scene after the shooting occurred, he said.

Phelan said Fraser was parked in the street and Litolff was in his driveway when the shooting started. Fraser was 20 to 30 yards away from Litolff and the visibility was poor, Phelan added.

Most of the shots struck the Litolff home, while one struck a neighboring home and a tree on the property. Litolff was first shot in his foot, Phelan said, and he continued to approach Fraser.

Fraser had 12 rounds in the magazine of his police-issued .45 auto Glock handgun and another round in the chamber, Phelan said. He reloaded once. Phelan said officers always have two 12-round magazines on their belt.

"The officers are trained to shoot until the threat is ceased," Phelan said. "We believe that the last shot ceased the threat (the one that struck Litolff in the chest)."

Fraser's wife was in the patrol car with him for an authorized ride-along, Phelan said. "It's not unusual," Phelan said. "The proper procedures have been followed. She was a passenger in the vehicle at the time."

Phelan said Litolff didn't have any "diagnosed medical issues." But Phelan said there were some medical issues Litolff would have been seeking help for in the near future. Phelan declined to elaborate further on Litolff's medical condition.

Betwood Lane is a residential road off Long Pond Road, across the road from Greece Athena middle and high schools. Students are not at school this week due to spring break.

Use of deadly force

The incident marks the fifth time since 2008 a Greece police officer has shot another person while on-duty. Sgt. Jared René, the department’s public information officer, said it was important to look at that number in the broader context.

"We take roughly 100,000 calls for service each year," he said. "Over the course of 10 years, five incidents is a dramatically low number as it relates to the number of calls."

With roughly 96,000 residents, Greece has the highest population of any suburb in Monroe County and is one of the largest in the state. The Greece Police Department’s 100 sworn personnel patrol an area of roughly 50 square miles, almost twice the size of the city of Rochester.

The town’s mix of working farms, residential neighborhoods and dense retail creates unique challenges, and René says officers have to be prepared for everything.

"We don’t deal with people with firearms all too often, but we are prepared for it," he said. "We do train for it and it’s something we’re always conscious of."

The department’s policy on the use of deadly physical force is guided by Article 35 of New York penal code, which says that an officer may do so when he "reasonably believes it necessary to prevent death or serious physical injury" or that another person "is using or about to use deadly physical force."

René said that officers receive intensive training that helps them react instinctively when confronted with such a threat.

"We work on de-escalation, defensive tactics and scenario-based training," he said. "We also have less lethal weaponry we can deploy, but it’s very clear that if there is a firearm pointed at you, your only recourse is deadly physical force."

René himself was involved in a shooting in 2014. Officers were called to Stone Road for reports of a loose dog and were trying to return the animal to its home. Concerned for the welfare of the owner, they entered a residence and found a man — later identified as 34-year-old Thomas Manza — naked and asleep on a bedroom floor, with a shotgun beside him.

Investigators said Manza woke and aimed the loaded shotgun at police. Rene fired twice, striking the man once in the torso.

Manza survived and is currently in state prison after being convicted of drug possession and menacing a police officer.

"There was no expectation that day that we were going to be met with any type of violence or resistance," René said. "No one wants to go through this. It’s not what we signed up for."

He added that after the incident, the possibility of deadly force is always in the back of his mind when he goes out on calls.

"We are prepared for the worst, and sometimes that’s the case but most often it is not," René said. "Most of the calls that officers answer are fairly routine."

Previous incidents

The most recent police shooting in Greece occurred on June 1, 2015, when Officer Eric Hughes shot and killed Joseph M. Ladd in the parking lot at The Mall at Greece Ridge.

Police had been looking for Ladd, concerned about his well-being. A friend had called 911 to report the young man was distraught and potentially suicidal.

Hughes spotted the car Ladd was riding in and approached the vehicle in an overflow parking lot just to the west of the mall's Target store.

He radioed in to say that Ladd had what appeared to be an ammunition clip in his pocket. He also radioed in and said Ladd appeared to be reaching for his waistband and requested his backup step it up.

Shortly thereafter, an altercation ensued, with Ladd still seated inside the car and Hughes partly inside the car. The car accelerated forward, dragging Hughes. Ladd was shot twice and pronounced dead at the scene.

On Dec. 20, 2009, Greece police )fficers Joseph Hopper and Shaun Moore shot and killed 62-year-old Paul Miller. Miller was standing at the corner of Second Street and Braddocks Avenue threatening to kill himself. The officers shot Miller after he pointed his gun at them.

The incident began after Miller had been arrested and charged with misdemeanor drunken driving, then taken home by a Monroe County sheriff's deputy. Miller went into his house on Ontario Boulevard, then came back to the door with a pistol. The deputy retreated, called for backup, and got Miller's wife out of the house. As police were arriving, Miller came out of the house carrying the gun and what appeared to be a dead cat. He walked through the neighborhood with the gun pointed at his head. He ignored repeated demands to drop the weapon before pointing it toward Hopper and Moore.

Moore had been involved in another shooting 13 months earlier. He shot and wounded Scott Burke, 36, during a standoff at his Nahant Road home on Nov. 21, 2008. Burke tried to stab his wife during a domestic dispute and held police at bay for 20 minutes while threatening to kill her.

As Burke raised a 12-inch knife above his head and began to bring it down toward his wife, Moore fired once through a living room window, hitting Burke with a bullet that went through his right arm and lodged in his abdomen.

Burke pleaded guilty to attempted murder and served almost eight years in prison. He was released on parole last May.

More: Officer-involved shootings over the years

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