A former North Andover police officer went on trial Monday for allegedly pointing her service weapon at a fellow officer and pulling the trigger during a confrontation at her home, with prosecutors telling the judge that only two things prevented a cop from dying that day: an unchambered round and decades of training.

Kelsey Fitzsimmons, 28, faces one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, Fox News reported. Her defense tells a radically different story, one in which the gun was never aimed at anyone but herself.

The bench trial opened in Essex Superior Court with both sides laying out narratives that barely seem to describe the same event. Because Fitzsimmons waived her right to a jury, Judge Jeffrey Karp will decide the verdict alone.

Two Versions of the Same Moment

Assistant Essex District Attorney James Gubitose told Judge Karp that when officers arrived at Fitzsimmons' home, she retrieved her firearm and leveled it at Officer Patrick Noonan. Gubitose described fellow officers pleading with her in the moment:

"Kelsey, don't do it. Drop it. Kelsey, don't do it."

Then, according to the prosecution, Fitzsimmons pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Her gun held a full magazine but no round in the chamber. Gubitose framed Noonan's survival in stark terms:

"There are two reasons that Patrick Noonan is alive today. The first being that Miss Fitzsimmons' gun, while it had a full magazine, it did not have a round in the chamber. The second reason is that Patrick Noonan had years, decades of training, and experience, reacting in a calm, professional way when he protected both himself and everyone else in that house."

Noonan fired twice. The first shot missed. The second struck Fitzsimmons.

Defense attorney Timothy Bradl painted an entirely different picture. He argued that Fitzsimmons never aimed her weapon at anyone. She aimed it at herself. Bradl seized on the very words prosecutors cited as evidence of a threat, reframing them as evidence of a suicide intervention:

"Kelsey, no. Kelsey, no. You don't say that when you're staring at the muzzle of a gun pointed at you. You say that to a person who has a gun to their head, and you don't shoot someone in the chest when they are seeking clearly to only harm themselves."

It's a compelling rhetorical point, and one that Judge Karp will have to weigh against whatever physical evidence and testimony emerge during the trial.

A Life in Collapse

According to Bradl, the confrontation didn't materialize out of nowhere. Fitzsimmons' fiancé, Justin Aylaian, had obtained a restraining order against her without her knowledge. North Andover police were dispatched to serve it. The order required Fitzsimmons to surrender her weapons and barred contact with her child.

Bradl described the scene in human terms that are difficult to dismiss, regardless of what ultimately happened in that bedroom: "And that day, Your Honor, Kelsey stood in her house, in humiliation, in front of her police colleagues and friends."

He told the court that Fitzsimmons, struggling with postpartum depression, decided in that moment to end her own life. Bradl called the idea that she intended to harm her fellow officers "ludicrous."

The defense also went after the prosecution's portrayal of Noonan as a composed, battle-tested professional who calmly neutralized a threat. Bradl pushed back directly:

"The evidence will show that he is not some super cool James Bond type, law enforcement officer, that he has a look of panic on his face, and that he's flustered."

Bradl argued that an officer acting rationally would never bargain verbally with someone holding a gun to his face. You negotiate with someone about to hurt themselves. And then, Bradl suggested, the narrative had to shift after the fact:

"And when you do that, you quickly realize, Your Honor, that you need to adjust the narrative to save yourself. That's what this case is about, Your Honor."

The Charge That Narrowed

The charges against Fitzsimmons underwent changes from the time of her initial arrest. She was originally arrested on one count of armed assault with intent to murder and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon.

When the case went to a grand jury, they returned a single count of assault with a dangerous weapon. The most serious charge evaporated. The grand jury saw whatever evidence the prosecution presented and decided the murder charge didn't hold. That doesn't exonerate Fitzsimmons, but it tells you something about the strength of the prosecution's original theory.

Fitzsimmons has pleaded not guilty.

A Case That Should Trouble Everyone

This trial sits at a painful intersection of issues that don't resolve neatly along partisan lines: police use of force, mental health crises, restraining order procedures, and the question of whether a woman in psychological freefall was a threat to others or only to herself.

What should concern anyone watching is the gap between the two narratives. Either a police officer tried to murder a colleague in her own home, or a woman in the grip of postpartum depression attempted suicide and was shot in the chest by a panicked fellow officer who then reframed the encounter as self-defense. Those are not adjacent stories. They are opposite conclusions drawn from the same few seconds.

The physical evidence, including the unchambered weapon, the trajectory of Noonan's shots, and body camera footage, if it exists, will matter more than either attorney's opening rhetoric. Judge Karp now carries the full weight of sorting truth from performance.

One thing is already clear: whatever happened in that house, every person involved had failed long before anyone reached for a gun.