Two Cambridge police officers were legally justified in fatally shooting a 64-year-old man during an August encounter in Central Square, a judge concluded in a judicial inquest report released Friday.
District Court Judge Holly Broadbent found that Officers Donald Conrad and James Nestor acted reasonably when they opened fire on William Woodworth on Aug. 21 after he retrieved a loaded revolver from beneath his driver’s seat and pointed it at trainee Officer David Kerns. “Any reasonable police officer in their position would reasonably believe that both the officers and civilians were in imminent danger of being seriously injured or killed,” Broadbent wrote in her report.
The report provides new details about the confrontation, which unfolded in less than 60 seconds after Conrad approached Woodworth’s vehicle in a private parking lot behind 675 Massachusetts Ave. It also reveals that Conrad recognized Woodworth from two previous encounters, including a traffic stop that resulted in a firearm charge later dismissed because the stop was unconstitutional.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan accepted the judge’s findings and filed a certificate closing the criminal investigation into the shooting. Her office also released the inquest findings and body camera footage Friday.
Cambridge police welcomed the findings Friday, praising in a statement the “professionalism, courage, and training demonstrated by the officers involved” in response to what the department described as a rapidly escalating and dangerous confrontation. The statement said their response kept the situation from “resulting in further serious injury or loss of life.”
The department also expressed condolences to Woodworth’s family and said the release of the inquest findings and body-camera footage was consistent with its commitment to transparency and accountability. The department urged the public to exercise discretion when viewing the body-camera footage, warning that it contains graphic and potentially distressing material.
Less than a minute of conflict
Shortly before 8 p.m. on Aug. 21, a security guard at 675 Massachusetts Ave. called 911 to report people who had been loitering in the building’s private parking lot for an extended period. Nestor and his partner, Officer Saimon Teclezghi, arrived first and spoke with the security guard before entering the parking lot.
Conrad, who was serving as a field training officer, arrived with trainee Officer David Kerns. Police encountered two people standing outside a Jeep Compass occupied by Woodworth. Conrad suspected one of them was smoking crack cocaine, but she denied this, saying she was smoking marijuana.
Conrad approached the passenger side of the Jeep and recognized Woodworth. During a previous traffic stop involving Woodworth, police had recovered a firearm from a car he was driving. Woodworth was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, but the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge ruled the traffic stop unconstitutional. About a month before the shooting, Conrad had again stopped a vehicle occupied by Woodworth and another person, in which police recovered crack cocaine and a double-sided machete.
During the fatal Aug. 21 encounter, Conrad asked Woodworth why he was smoking crack inside the Jeep, which Woodworth denied. He then instructed the other officers to search the two people standing outside the vehicle and ordered Woodworth to get out of the car.
As Woodworth began exiting the Jeep, he reached beneath the driver’s seat and retrieved a firearm, according to the judge’s findings. Conrad ordered him to leave the weapon where it was and repeatedly told him to put it down.
Woodworth ignored those commands and pointed the gun at Kerns, who had approached the driver’s side of the vehicle, the judge found. Kerns grabbed Woodworth’s arms in an attempt to disarm him.
Conrad fired six times through the Jeep’s lowered passenger-side window, during which his gun briefly malfunctioned and ejected an unfired round. Nestor, who had been standing near the rear of the vehicle, turned toward the confrontation and fired once.
The officers pulled Woodworth from the Jeep and administered first aid, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy identified five gunshot wounds: one to his head, one to his shoulder and three to his back.
Investigators recovered Woodworth’s revolver, a .38 Special loaded with five live rounds. The report does not indicate that he fired the weapon.
City holds office hours
All the officers involved wore body cameras, although the footage was not released to the public before now. In the week after the shooting, the City of Cambridge held open office hours for the public to discuss the shooting with acting Police Commissioner Pauline Wells, Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Yi-An Huang.
These were “lightly attended,” according to city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick. At Wells’ office hours at Street Theory Collective Cafe, there were more police officers present than residents. Wells addressed the question of releasing the footage with a reporter. “Everyone wants to see it, and I want everyone to see it,” Wells said.
But she said she was bound by the inquest process and could not make the video available for release. She did say the footage was useful. “A picture is one moment in time, but a video you know … people have different opinions about what happened, because it’s in the past. Especially in a critical situation, people have tunnel vision, they don’t see things,” she said. “So, I think video is helpful in taking out your opinions and conjecture. Maybe this happened, or maybe that happened. Good, bad or indifferent, this is what happened.”
Later that week, Huang issued a statement advocating for the earlier release of footage, saying in part “I believe that the timely release of Body Worn Camera footage is critical to public trust, especially as we seek to build greater transparency in our public safety system.”
Although Massachusetts residents have a right to access public government records, including body-worn camera footage, Cambridge Police have not released much footage since the beginning of their department-wide use on April 1, 2025. The program began after a 2023 police shooting of Arif Sayed Faisal, who was wielding a knife, in Cambridgeport.
According to Cambridge Police, as of Jan. 1, 2026, there have been 52 body-worn camera video releases to the general public under the Freedom of Information Act, and 660 requests by the District Attorney’s Office.
Wells cited one social media story Cambridge Police posted using body-worn camera footage, but otherwise said releasing footage “has not been a regular practice.”
Investigation and inquest
Massachusetts State Police investigated the shooting on behalf of the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, collecting body-camera and surveillance footage, recorded interviews and ballistic evidence. Civilian witness Lenneth O’Neal told investigators he heard officers yell “put it down,” then saw Woodworth lunge toward an officer and point what appeared to be a gun at him before hearing multiple gunshots.
At a Sept. 9 inquest hearing, Broadbent considered 38 exhibits and heard from the lead investigator and police use-of-force expert Charles DiChiara. Neither Conrad nor Nestor testified, although the judge reviewed recorded interviews they gave investigators three days after the shooting.
DiChiara, who oversees use-of-force training for the Municipal Police Training Committee, the state agency responsible for setting training standards for municipal police officers, testified that officers must attempt to de-escalate encounters unless doing so is tactically unsafe or infeasible. But once someone presents an imminent deadly threat, he said, “Officers are taught not to count the number of rounds and to just shoot till the threat is neutralized and then stop. Once the threat is neutralized, stop shooting.”
Woodworth’s history detailed
The report also described Woodworth’s history of mental health challenges, based on interviews with his mother, sister and estranged wife.
His mother and sister told investigators he had sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident at age 18 and subsequently received diagnoses of psychosis and bipolar disorder. They described multiple psychiatric hospitalizations throughout his adult life.
His family also reported a history of substance and alcohol abuse. His mother and sister told investigators that Woodworth had at times become violent when he combined prescribed medications with alcohol and illegal drugs. His sister also recalled Woodworth once saying, “the best way to die would be to point a gun at someone else.” The report does not establish Woodworth’s intentions during his final encounter with police.
Cambridge police said the incident had a lasting impact on those involved and that the department would continue supporting the responding officers. Its statement did not address whether Nestor and Conrad have returned to active duty or, if not, when they will. Cambridge Day has asked Cambridge Police for more information.
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