Family plans to sue Fall River police for fatal shooting of Anthony Harden

In November 2021, two Fall River police officers entered an apartment to arrest a man whose girlfriend reported him for physical abuse. Within two minutes of their arrival, Anthony Harden lay dying of gunshot wounds on his bedroom floor.

The first publicized description of what happened came out the morning after the shooting.

“Initial information indicates that a knife was present at the scene of the altercation,” said Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn, who led an investigation that eventually cleared the officers of wrongdoing.

Quinn found that Harden attempted to stab Officer Michael Sullivan with a steak knife, triggering a justified use of lethal force from Sullivan’s partner that night, Officer Chelsea Campellone.

Harden’s family questioned the story from the outset. They have held protests and filed lawsuits seeking records related to the investigation and demanding the removal of Quinn from his office.

On Thursday, two of Harden’s brothers took their legal challenges a step further with a letter announcing their intention to file a civil lawsuit over his “unjustified, unlawful and unnecessary killing.” The letter, signed by attorney Donald A. Brisson, is addressed to Fall River’s mayor, police chief, corporation counsel and city clerk.

Representatives from the Fall River Police Department, the mayor’s office and the district attorney’s office all declined to comment on the allegations laid out in the letter.

Harden’s brothers, Eric Mack and Antone Harding, claim the police department acted negligently by failing to provide Officer Campellone with a taser the night she fatally shot Anthony Harden.

“By not being issued a taser, a less lethal force option was not available to her,” the letter said.

The letter also questions the credibility of the police narrative of the shooting, calling attention to the “extremely suspicious” location of the steak knife Harden allegedly used to try to stab an officer.

A state trooper from the district attorney’s office, Christopher Johnson, filed an initial report saying emergency responders found the knife when they turned Harden’s body over to treat his gunshot wounds.

But two paramedics who transported Harden to the hospital did not recall seeing the knife, according to documents released by the district attorney’s office.

Another Fall River police officer, whose name is redacted in the documents, recalled finding the knife under a pile of picture frames blocking the doorway to Harden’s bedroom. After leaving the scene of the shooting, the officer called back to report that he had “removed the knife and placed it on a desk.”

The lawsuit threatened in the Harden family’s letter would seek damages of $50 million for Harden’s death. Another $500,000 would be sought for the “emotional distress, pain and anguish” suffered by Harden’s twin brother, Antone, who overheard the shooting and was detained by police afterwards for questioning.

It would be the second wrongful death lawsuit currently threatening Fall River’s police department with serious financial penalties. Another family has filed a civil complaint seeking damages of $34 million for the 2017 fatal shooting of Larry Ruiz-Barreto.

The department is fighting this litigation while dealing with several other cases where current and former officers face allegations of mishandling drug evidence and filing false reports to cover up alleged beatings of suspects.

This story was originally published by The Public's Radio. The Public’s Radio in Rhode Island and WBUR have a partnership in which the news organizations collaborate and share stories.