Greenfield Police Chief Brian Giammarino will not be charged in the June 21 shooting of Lane Lesko on Route 136 in Peterborough, according to the state Attorney General’s report released Wednesday morning.

Twenty-nine days after the high-speed chase and shooting that killed the Michigan teen, the attorney general’s office has concluded that the shooting was legally justified.

“With our chief’s extensive experience in law enforcement matters, we were confident our chief would be exonerated, and the Attorney General has verified this with the release of their investigation findings,” Greenfield Selectboard Chair Margaret Charig Bliss wrote in a statement on behalf of the board. “It’s yet another example that modern-day police problems and issues can enter even the smallest of New Hampshire towns.”

She wrote that while their hearts go out to Lesko’s family, they are “relieved” that their chief’s actions were justified.

Patricia Lesko, Lane’s mother, said that the report is only one piece of a complicated story, and that she expected the outcome.

“No one who is mentally ill deserves to be shot,” she said. “Even when they are shouting ‘Shoot me, kill me.’”

Giammarino, who has been on leave since June 24, fired four times, hitting Lesko in the neck and killing him, according to the release. 

Giammarino was reportedly shaken. One eyewitness said he was “bent over, visibly upset, and appeared almost physically ill,” after the incident, according to the release.

Witnesses said Lesko shouted “Shoot me. Kill me.”

Giammarino said “He made us do that,” Peterborough Cpl. Craig Edsall’s told investigators. He said Giammarino was emotional.

The report says, “It was reasonable for Giammarino to conclude that Lesko’s gun was a real firearm, and that Lesko was about to use deadly force against him.”

It also says that a BB gun legally qualifies as a deadly weapon “based on the manner in which he used it and intended to use it at the time of the incident.” The medical examiner confirmed in the report that BB guns can “cause death or serious bodily harm.”

An alert was issued for officers to be on the lookout for Lesko after he stole a BMW vehicle that told Giammarino that “Lesko had committed robbery involving a firearm,” it says.

Edsall said in the report that he heard dispatch refer to Lesko as “armed and dangerous.”

Police shooting investigations hinge on whether officers are justified in thinking they need to use deadly force because they are faced with an imminent threat of deadly force themselves. The attorney general’s report focuses greatly on the BB gun wielded by Lesko and whether Giammarino could have known it was not a real firearm.

The conclusion is that he could not have, based on witness testimony, including Giammarino’s own.

In the section of the report detailing Giammarino’s account, it says he saw a black handgun that, when fired, made “pop, pop sounds.” He says he turned to Edsall to ask what the weapon was, and that Edsall shrugged that he did not know.

Edsall told investigators that the sounds from Lesko’s weapon were similar to a .22 caliber handgun, and that when Giammarino asked if they were being fired at, he responded, “I think so.”

Edsall also told investigators that he heard State Trooper Scott Tracey say it was an Airsoft gun, which shoot plastic pellets.

Tracey said in the report that he did yell that, but, “Given the noise from Giammarino’s cruiser siren, [Tracey] did not know if [Giammarino and Edsall] could have even heard him,” according to the report.

There were two civilian eye-witnesses, whose accounts are detailed in the release. Cynthia West said she heard “gunshots.” Alvin Van Cleave said, according to the release, “He was not sure if they were gunshots, the sounds made by a pellet gun, or a .22 caliber gun.”

Based on this information, the Attorney General’s investigation concluded that Giammarino’s actions were legally justified because he reasonably believed he was facing deadly force.

The release defines “reasonably believes” meaning that Giammarino “need not have been confronted with actual deadly peril, as long as he could reasonably believe the danger to be real.” It concluded that a reasonable person without the benefit of hindsight would have acted the same way.

“The law accounts for the often fast moving nature of dangerous situations and the necessity of making decisions in less than ideal circumstances,” the report said.

According to police reports, Lesko used an Airsoft gun to steal a car from a Michigan dealership.

The report says investigators did not learn how or where Lesko got the BB gun. 

The investigation acknowledged that Lesko’s behavior and judgment may have been affected by his mental health issues. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Still, investigators concluded “none of the police officers at the scene knew about Lesko’s mental health issues at the time of the incident and even if they had, it would not have changed the fact that Lesko presented an apparent imminent threat of deadly force,” according to the conclusion of the release.

Bliss said in her statement that Giammarino will remain on leave until he’s had “adequate time to fully recover from this tragic incident.”