TRENTON — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family of a Manchester Township man killed by police over the 2010 Memorial Day weekend after he flashed a toy shotgun at officers.

U.S. District Court Judge Joel Pisano, in a ruling issued late last week, said it made little difference if the gun Richard Nordstrom displayed was a plastic toy as long as township officers reasonably believed their lives were in danger.

“The fact that the decedent was holding what appeared to be a shotgun is not disputed, and Officer (Michael) Lynch’s mistaken belief that the shotgun was real must be forgiven, as the circumstances indicate that this mistake was reasonable,” Pisano wrote. “Defendant Lynch was forced into making a split-second decision and reasonably believed that the safety of his fellow officers was at risk.”

To back his decision, Pisano cited several federal appeals court rulings that upheld police use of deadly force, including one in which a suspected car thief was holding a crack pipe that New Jersey state troopers believed to be a gun.

“Police officers do not enter into a suicide pact when they take an oath to uphold the Constitution,” a panel of judges for the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals declared in that case in 2011.

It is unclear whether Nordstrom’s family intends to appeal. Their attorney, Gregory Sharkey, could not be reached for comment.

The decision ends, for now, years of legal wrangling over a confrontation that played out over little more than 20 minutes in the garage behind the Wilbur Avenue home on May 30, 2010.

Police found Nordstrom in the detached garage after responding to a 911 call made shortly before 2 p.m. by Nordstrom's then 22-year-old nephew, Andrew Nordstrom. The nephew claimed that his uncle assaulted him after he stepped outside to have a cigarette, the ruling says.

When Lynch and the other officers went out to the garage, they found Nordstrom in the workshop. “I’m not coming out,” Nordstrom warned them. “You can come in but I’m not coming out.”

Seconds later, officers spotted a black spout from a red gasoline can and a utility lighter in Nordstrom’s hand. Nordstrom poured nearly a gallon of gasoline on himself in an apparent effort to set himself on fire, according to court papers.

Then, as two officers used a shovel to try to barge their way in through the garage door, Lynch spied what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun in Nordstrom’s hand, according to Pisano’s ruling.

Lynch fired after Nordstrom raised the shotgun, offering him a glimpse at the gun’s barrel and pump action, the ruling noted.

Nordstrom was hit in the torso. Lynch fired a second shot that hit Nordstrom in the back of the left shoulder when he noticed Nordstrom was still holding the gun and fellow officers were making their way in to prevent Nordstrom from lighting himself on fire, the ruling noted.

Nordstrom, 42, was pronounced dead around 2:24 p.m. at a nearby hospital.

Nordstrom's family filed a lawsuit seeking $20 million two years later, claiming the Manchester officers used excessive force and were too poorly trained to manage the actions of a suicidal, emotionally disturbed person.



Pisano dismissed both claims.

“Plaintiffs expert contends that the police were not trained, in particular, on how to deal with an emotionally disturbed person,” Pisano wrote. “This argument, however, is speculative as it assumes that the decedent was in fact an emotionally disturbed person and, in any event it is not enough to establish that the injury could have been avoided by more or different training.”

The family’s lawyers also claimed officers should have done more to investigate whether Nordstrom was under the influence of alcohol and therefore incapable of understanding the officers’ orders.

And Pisano rejected a claim of emotional distress made by Nordstrom’s father, Edward Nordstrom.

Edward Nordstrom was standing at the garage door and had witnessed his son being shot, the lawsuit claims. He was in the process of retrieving the key to the garage when the shooting occurred, the ruling noted.

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