A police officer and a military-contracted security guard involved in a shooting that left a Massachusetts man dead outside of New Boston Space Force Station have been identified as an investigation continues.
Michael Foley, 33, was fatally shot on Galaxy Way, an access road that leads to the remote Space Force station in New Hampshire, during the May 13 incident. A police officer and a “contracted security officer” were involved in the incident, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office said.
The attorney general has identified the two men as New Boston police officer Shane Morton, who has served in law enforcement for five years, and military contractor Peter White, who has been with security company Lockwood Hills for six years and had prior experience in the armed services. But further details of the shooting have not been disclosed.
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Foley was killed at the scene by a “single gunshot wound” and the “manner of death is homicide,” New Hampshire’s Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mitchell Weinberg said in a release.
New Boston Space Force Station is conducting a use-of-force review board to examine the shooting and investigate what occurred with the contractor, Stephen Brady, a spokesman for Space Force’s Peterson-Schriever Garrison, which oversees New Boston Space Force Station, told Military.com following the incident.
“Base security was never compromised, the vital Space Force satellite command and control mission continued without interruption, and there is no known threat to the community,” Brady said in an emailed statement May 16.
It’s still not clear who fired the fatal round.
“The exact circumstances surrounding this incident remain under investigation,” the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. “A report regarding whether the use of force was justified will be released once the investigation is completed.”
New Boston Space Force Station has had a long history in the Department of the Air Force.
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps — the precursor to the Air Force — used land in New Boston that was near the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport as a bombing range for airplanes.
Following WWII, the range was deactivated and, in the 1960s, it became a satellite tracking station. In the late ’80s, it was transferred to Air Force Space Command.
Shortly after the U.S. Space Force became a service, New Boston’s satellite operation was transferred to its command in 2021.
New Boston is home to the 23rd Space Operations Squadron, which provides satellite capabilities to “more than 190 Department of Defense, national and civilian satellites performing intelligence, weather, navigation, early-warning and communications operations,” according to the Space Force.
— Thomas Novelly can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.
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