A standoff at a Manchester hotel that began Wednesday night ended mid-morning Thursday after a SWAT team entered a barricaded room to find two suspects dead, police said. Another man died Wednesday during a shootout with police and federal drug agents, according to the New Hampshire attorney general’s office.
Stephen Marshall, 51, of Manchester was fatally wounded about 7:30 p.m. after he shot at an unidentified Manchester police officer and DEA agents at the rear of the Quality Inn, Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald said early Thursday morning.
“Manchester police officers were, for lack of a better term, attacked last night,” Manchester police Chief Carlo Capano said during an early morning news conference, according to the Manchester Union Leader.
“It’s something we can’t tolerate; it’s something we won’t tolerate,” Capano said.
Marshall was taken to nearby Elliot Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No police officers were injured in the shooting, a portion of which was caught on camera, MacDonald said.
Marshall was wanted on a warrant after skipping a court date in Hillsborough County Superior Court North in Manchester, where he was expected to plead guilty to two separate drug possession cases, one from 2018 and the other from this year, the Union Leader reported.
A standoff ensued between police and two other suspects who barricaded themselves in a first-floor room in the hotel on John E. Devine Drive, according to Manchester police.
That standoff ended about 10:20 a.m. when a Nashua SWAT team entered the room and found the two suspects dead, according to the Union Leader. The suspects haven’t been identified as police work to notify next of kin. The Nashua SWAT team was called in to relieve Manchester police.
The two suspects holed up in the room for hours through intense negotiations with police and sporadic gunfire throughout the night and early morning hours, according to the department. A Manchester SWAT team attempted to flush out the suspects with chemical agents, but they refused to vacate the hotel room.
“Police officers attempted to speak with those individuals and seek a peaceful resolution to the situation. Instead, at least one of the individuals in the room fired multiple gunshots out of the room over a nine-hour timespan,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Guests were safely evacuated shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday, police said. Police cordoned off a portion of South Willow Street north of Interstate 293 during the standoff and closed nearby businesses, the Union Leader reports.
An autopsy on Marshall was scheduled for Thursday morning at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Concord, according to the attorney general’s office.
The attorney general’s office and New Hampshire State Police Major Crime Unit are investigating the officer-involved shooting. The Manchester police officer involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave, as is standard procedure.