Witness shares harrowing story of being in the middle of Hanover officer-involved shooting

A little over a week after police fatally shot a wanted man outside of a Hanover gas station, a Hanover woman shared her harrowing account of getting caught in the middle of the ordeal.

Melissa Capps started her Friday, Feb. 2 morning with a regular trip to Sunoco on Broadway.

Moments earlier, a Hanover Police officer on routine patrol had spotted a wanted Hanover man, Richard Bolen, 37, of the 700 block of Baltimore Street, at the same gas station and called for backup.

Previously reported: Wanted man killed after he pointed gun at officers at Hanover gas station: state police

As Capps turned from Broadway into the parking lot, she noticed a police officer walking up Broadway toward the store from the direction of the square, passing a hair salon and dentist's office.

Capps and the officer reached the door to the minimart at roughly the same time, with Capps holding the door open for the officer. As she opened the door, she saw another officer was already in the store − with his gun drawn.

As both Capps and the officer she was holding the door open for noticed the officer inside with his gun drawn, the officer outside drew his weapon.

Capps, not knowing what was going on, went straight back to her van, parked at the number two pump.

Before Capps could leave, she said she heard a loud commotion. The two officers who were inside the store were now running out of the store, yelling "he's going out the side."

Man in a red shirt

As the officers yelled, Capps looked up and saw a man in a red shirt, later identified as Bolen, coming from around the side of the building..

"At that point, I lowered myself down on my seat, because I thought they were just going to be chasing him in the parking lot, I could start my car and leave," Capps recalled. "But it didn't quite work out that way."

Then Capps heard more yelling. "He's got a gun," she remembers hearing officers yell. "Drop the weapon," officers repeated numerous times.

As this happened, Capps squeezed herself down as low as she could go in her van, laying sideways across the driver's seat and the passenger seat in fear of getting shot.

"And then I just heard, pow, pow, pow," she recalled. "I think I heard five, but it could have been six, and then it was silent."

"They were all going in a direction away from me," Capps said.

After the gunshots, Capps sat back up, seeing the man in the red shirt, Bolen, now laying on the ground propped up on a backpack next to the gray Honda Pilot, facing towards her and the gas pumps.

"He had a gun in his right hand," Capps recalled. "It was black and silver."

As Capps tried to get a better look, she realized Bolen was still alive and was attempting to say something.

"He's gonna kill himself," she remembered hearing officers yell as Bolen lay on the ground with the gun still in his hand.

"If he starts to shoot, they're gonna come my way."

"That was probably the scariest part of it all," she recalls. "If he starts to shoot, they're gonna come my way."

At this point, Capps hid underneath her steering wheel for a second time, frantically looking for her keys.

As she hid, Capps recalled telling herself aloud, "You're going to be OK; you're going to make it out of this."

As she scrambled, she called her daughter, Grayson, twice.

"Thankfully, she didn't answer," Capps said.

As she found her keys, one of the officers who was standing in front of her van hit the hood of her van, yelling "go, go, go, go."

Immediately, Capps sat straight up, threw the van into drive, and pulled out onto Fulton Avenue, turning right onto Broadway.

Capps pulled into the Hanover Transmission parking lot on Broadway, smoked a cigarette, and called Grayson to tell her that she was alive and what had just happened.

As Capps spoke with Grayson, the two were able to figure out that the man she had just seen with a gun was Richard Bolen, as Grayson found the news release by Penn Township Police about a prior incident in which Bolen had allegedly pulled a gun on officers.

After calming down and processing what had just transpired, Capps returned to the Sunoco to speak with officers.

Capps said she provided officers with her information and a brief statement.

State police are investigating the shooting at the request of the York County District Attorney's Office. The Hanover police officers who fired their duty weapons were placed on administrative duty pending a review by the York County District Attorney's Office, according to a release by state police.

Conflicted feelings

The ordeal left Capps feeling conflicted.

She is thankful for the officers, including her "guardian angel" officer who stood in front of her car protecting her. "I've never even been able to see his face," Capps noted of the officer who protected her. She said she'd like to give him a hug.

"In all honesty, I think that Hanover (police) probably did the right thing," she said. "(Bolen) had pulled a gun on officers just two nights prior. He had to have known how he was going to go out."

Still, Capps felt forgotten about in the whole ordeal. A week had passed, and police had not reached out to her, whether to check on her well-being or to follow up with her statement. She said she feels investigators should be responsible for getting more witness accounts than just that of the officers involved.

On Friday, she called state police, and she said she was told her contact information had been lost. She said she then gave an account of the event to the state trooper on the phone, and she confirmed she had seen the suspect with a gun.

"We all need to do better and check up on people more when things have happened," Capps says, "I don't want this to happen to somebody else, because this was an awful feeling."

In the end, Capps is thankful to be alive.

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, completely the wrong place and wrong time."

Investigation continues

An autopsy the day after the shooting determined that Bolen's cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds. The manner was homicide, the coroner's office said.

The coroner's definition of homicide is "death at the hands of another," and law enforcement continue to investigate the shooting. "Sometimes, even with homicide as a ruling, it may be determined to be justifiable," a coroner news release stated.

Since the initial releases by the coroner's office and state police, no further information on the shooting investigation has been available.

Hanover and Penn Township police, along with York County District attorney spokesman Kyle King, referred inquiries to state police, who stated no further information will be available during the investigation.

Past record

Court records show an extensive criminal history for Bolen, who was previously twice found guilty of drug-related felonies, once in 2011 and once in 2013.

Most recently, prior to the first incident in which Bolen pulled a gun on an officer at a Smoker's Outlet on Jan. 31, Bolen was arrested in November 2023 for two felony counts of possession with the intent to deliver or manufacture, and one count of prohibited possession of a firearm. The charges also included a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest.

Bail had been set at $100,000 on Nov. 29, 2023 but had been revoked on Jan. 4, 2024.

Since the shooting, a niece of Bolen has started a GoFundMe page for Bolen's cremation, funeral arrangements and legal fees. The page describes Bolen as "a father, son, brother, uncle, and friend to many people."

"This is a hard time for many of us, and there’s a lot of unanswered questions yet," the page reads.

Harrison Jones is the Hanover reporter for the Evening Sun. Reach him at hjones@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Witness shares account of Hanover PA Police officer-involved shooting