Former acting fire chief killed in shooting

A former acting fire chief in New Bedford was shot and killed by police after he allegedly opened fire on officers outside a Fairhaven bar and grill on Friday night, officials said.

The man, identified as 55year-old Paul Coderre, was shot and killed, and a police officer from Acushnet was shot in the leg, Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn said at a late night news briefing.

The officer was taken to a hospital and was released later Friday night, Quinn said.

The Fairhaven Police Department said officers were called to the Bayside Lounge at 125 Sconticut Neck Road around 5 p.m. for a report of an intoxicated man.

Officers from surrounding communities also responded for mutual aid, the department said in a statement.

Gunshots “were later exchanged between the male and officers,” the department said. The man died, and a responding officer who was wounded in the shooting was taken to an area hospital, the statement said.

Quinn said Coderre had been drinking with his friends when an altercation occurred inside the Bayside Lounge that continued outside, and the police were called. Quinn said Coderre had a gun.

“Several attempts were made to use non-deadly force to subdue him, including the use of a taser,” Quinn said, according to video from WCVB. “Those attempts were not successful. At some point, he fired his gun. Police returned fire and the result of that, Paul Coderre died.”

A spokesman for New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell’s office confirmed Coderre was the city’s former acting fire chief.

“This evening’s fatal shooting in Fairhaven was tragic in every sense,” Mitchell wrote in a post on Facebook Friday night that did not identify Coderre. “I am relieved that the officer who was injured will make a full recovery, and that no one else was seriously hurt.”

The Acushnet Police Department said no one was available to speak when reached by phone Friday night. The Fairhaven Police Department referred further questions to the Bristol district attorney’s office, which did not immediately respond to messages seeking further information.

Coderre was fired from his job as New Bedford’s acting fire chief in January 2022 amid allegations that he had abused the fire department’s leave policy and had been dishonest about purported injuries he suffered on the job, the Globe reported.

He appealed his dismissal to the state’s Civil Service Commission, which last month overturned the termination, according to its website.

The commission found that “New Bedford failed to prove that he had misrepresented his physical abilities to avoid returning to duty or otherwise abuse the fire department’s injury leave policy.”