Newly released body camera footage captures the intense moments of a fatal August shootout in a Rhode Island harbor, where police confronted a 27-year-old man accused of stealing a luxury sailboat from a New Jersey marina four days earlier.
The incident unfolded on the morning of Aug. 26, 2026, after a harbormaster in Newport spotted a suspicious vessel matching the description of a missing 1968 Hinkley Bermuda 40 named Pathfinder. The boat’s original name had been scraped off the stern, prompting the harbormaster to alert local authorities. Four Newport officers rushed toward the vessel, which was moored in Newport Marina with its engines running while 27-year-old Brendan Norris worked on deck to pull up the anchor.
Video footage shared by Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy shows officers approaching the sailboat as one shouts, “Sir, stay on the deck,” while pointing a firearm at the suspect. As two officers boarded the vessel, Norris retreated below deck and opened fire, striking one officer in the leg and showering the area with shrapnel that hit the same officer in the face.
In response, officers unleashed a barrage of gunfire lasting 19 seconds. During the exchange, two of the officers leaped from the stolen sailboat onto a harbormaster’s vessel to escape the gunfire while broadcasting emergency radio calls for backup and reporting that an officer had been hit.
After securing the area, the wounded officer descended to the cabin’s entrance and discovered Norris mortally wounded. Radio transmissions captured the officer’s updates as colleagues repeatedly asked about casualties. “I’ve been hit in the leg, relax,” the officer told his team before climbing into the cabin and reporting that the suspect was down.
Norris was pronounced dead at the scene from a severe gunshot wound to the head. The injured officer was transported to a hospital in stable condition and has since returned to work, according to Chief Duffy.
Investigators determined that the vessel had been stolen during a late-night heist on Aug. 22 at the Liberty Harbor Marina in Jersey City, New Jersey. Security footage captured Norris lurking around the docks for roughly an hour and a half before commandeering the boat. He then sailed the vessel down the Upper Bay, passed beneath the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and allegedly disabled its tracking transponder system.
The boat’s owner, Jim Bonomo, discovered the craft was missing on Aug. 23 when he and his wife arrived at the marina, finding that a boat he had owned for a decade was gone. Bonomo had previously alerted marinas along the East Coast to watch for the stolen Pathfinder, leading directly to the identification and intervention by Newport harbor authorities.
