Video from a security camera inside a NH hospital shows the speed of events during the filming of 2023

In the days and weeks following the shooting at a New Hampshire hospital last November, a lot of information about the shooter emerged.

John Madore had a history of schizophrenia and was previously a patient at New Hampshire Hospitalstate psychiatric institution. Madore was temporary, staying in hotels, but regularly communicated with loved ones.

An investigation by the New Hampshire attorney general’s office found that Madore obtained the gun he used to kill Bradley Haas, a security guard standing in the hospital lobby, from a licensed firearms dealer, even though he was forbidden from guns because of his past psychiatric commitments.

The report of the Prosecutor Generalreleased in August, also described Madore’s whereabouts that day before he pulled a rented U-Haul loaded with additional weapons and ammunition into the hospital parking lot. The investigative report included still images and a detailed timeline, but the state declined to release any video footage, despite its longstanding practice of doing so after an officer-involved shooting investigation is complete.

related: One year after the shooting, NH Hospital is still working to improve security

NHPR recently obtained five videos from the state, with both inside and outside angles of the hospital’s lobby, including a bird’s-eye view that shows the main entrance, the security desk and much of the lobby. Parts of the video are edited or blurred; the state said the decision was made to protect the privacy interests of the families involved.

We sought the footage through a Right to Know request with two main goals: to better understand what happened that day and to see what could have been done differently. And secondly, to try to understand what changes can be made to improve security.

Here’s what we found out.

What the videos show

The main lobby video is about 30 minutes long.

Jeff Charnetz, one of two NHPR experts asked to review the video, spent 23 years in law enforcement in Manchester and now teaches criminal justice at Southern New Hampshire University.

He described the lobby layout as attractive and bright, which is important for a psychiatric facility, but the metal detectors at the entrance are easily bypassed.

“It’s great to have in place,” Czarnec said. “But they are not necessarily a deterrent to those who want to do harm.”

And this is clearly what Madore sought to do.

related: NH gun reform fails after hospital shooting. Lawyers will try again in 2025.

The video shows him leaving the parking lot wearing black pants, a flannel shirt and a vest. He moves quickly. As soon as he enters the lobby through the sliding glass doors, he reaches his right hand into his right pocket without breaking stride and pulls out a gun.

“He just comes in and was fully prepared. I don’t think he even had two legs when he started shooting,” Charnets said.

The video shows security guard Bradley Haas standing at a table next to a metal detector and looking at his phone. He barely manages to raise his head before he is shot.

“It’s a matter of seconds. There is no preparation, no warning,” Charnets said.

Haas was a 28-year veteran of the Franklin police force, rising to the rank of chief. After retiring from that position, he worked as a security guard at New Hampshire Hospital for over three years.

Later, there were questions about why someone in that position—with his level of experience—wasn’t armed. The day after the shooting, reporters asked Attorney General John Formella about it, who said it was “uncharacteristic of this position to be armed while working security in the front lobby.”

During this year’s legislative session, a bipartisan bill sought to address an apparent gap in the background check reporting system which Madore took advantage of buy a gun

Speaking in the House of Representatives from the Republican Party of the state of JR. Hoell said the problem isn’t the state’s gun laws, but the fact that Haas wasn’t carrying a gun that day to protect himself or others.

“So why did the person manning the security booth, manning the metal detector, not have a personal firearm on him that day?” Hoel asked.

There is no national consensus on whether armed guards are appropriate for acute psychiatric facilities. But this video from last November makes it clear that guns may not have saved Bradley Haas that day.

“Even if he was armed, there’s nothing you could have done to prevent what we saw (that day),” said John Jay College of Criminal Justice Brian Higgins, who also inspected the hospital. security personnel as requested by NHPR. “It’s almost like he didn’t have a chance.”

A policeman confronts an armed man

After Madore shoots Haas, he walks around the lobby shooting at the bulletproof windows, though that portion of the video has been edited out. The attorney general describes in his report that Madore eventually shot Haas again while he was on the ground.

However, the next door to the hospital is closed. Madore is effectively blocked from further entering the building.

About 22 seconds after Madore fired his first shot, police officer Nathan Slate can be seen on the right side of the frame. He opens the door to the office connected to the lobby where he was when the shooting started.

Mador sees him, but continues to try to reload the gun. According to the report, Slate ordered Madore to drop the weapon, but there is no audio recording from the lobby.

Slight then opens fire from a protected position.

“There, a paratrooper does everything that is required through training: hide and cover,” Charnets said.

Madore falls to the ground, wounded, leaning against the wall. However, he continues to move his hands, trying to recharge.

Sleight fires a second time: the muzzle flashes in rapid succession.

“Then he fires again to make sure that threat is gone,” Higgins said. “So I don’t have a problem with it at all. In fact, this is a good tactic.”

Slate fired a total of 11 rounds, emptying his magazine. The attorney general would later decide that the use of force was justified; both experts we asked to review the footage agreed with that conclusion.

Literally a few seconds after Madora is shot, the sliding glass door leading to the sidewalk opens again. A man enters the lobby. The person was later identified as a patient at the hospital. He can be seen walking towards Madore and then towards Haas. Dexterity quickly takes him outside.

In the video, Slate runs to his cruiser parked out front to grab more ammo; then he runs out of the hall a second time to grab his bulletproof vest.

Within minutes, Concord police and other police officers were on the scene.

They provide cover while Haas is dragged from the bleeding lobby and transported to nearby Concord Hospital, where he later dies.

Madore is dead on the spot.

A hardy team remembers a colleague

The New Hampshire hospital had 153 patients on the day of the shooting. There were dozens of doctors, nurses and other staff in the building. Five minutes before the shooting, 13 people walked through the hospital lobby, according to footage seen by NHPR.

Coincidentally, when Madore entered, the lobby was empty except for the security guard.

“It’s really great that despite the tragedy, the event was contained in this area and things could have been a lot worse than they were,” Ellen Lapointe, CEO of New Hampshire Hospital, said recently during a tour of the lobby.

After the shooting, changes were made to how staff and visitors enter the building. For example, sliding glass doors from the outside no longer automatically open into the lobby.

This will theoretically slow down anyone looking to do damage.

Now everyone needs a badge or needs to register to enter. In addition, an armed law enforcement officer currently works in the lobby.

Next January, a major construction project, which has already begun, will completely update the entrance and traffic.

But for now this space is there in the main point of entry and exit for personnel.

Every day they pass the place where their colleague Bradley Haas was killed.

Lapointe says it’s been a tough year.

“The staff showed tremendous resilience and really put a lot of care into patient care and honored Brad and really remembered him as the positive, kind, caring gentleman that he was,” Lapointe said. “And I try not to focus on the tragedies that happened here.”