In Connecticut, a Police Killing That Seemed to Go Against Type Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times John Valluzzo's home in Ridgefield, Conn. A friend of his girlfriend called the police about a domestic disturbance there. RIDGEFIELD, Conn. - It is a sadly familiar story: A police call to an apparent disturbance; a sudden encounter between an officer and a suspect believed to be armed; a snap decision; pops of gunfire and the terrible aftermath of blood and regret. But after officers were called to the Fairfield County home owned by John Valluzzo last week, it was as if the expected story line evoking Amadou Diallo or other police killings had been turned on its head. This time the person who was shot was a successful 75-year-old businessman and philanthropist, and the policeman a well-liked veteran who was a rare minority officer in a virtually all-white department. The setting was not a dark city street but a 9,000-square-foot estate in a green, historic Connecticut town whose residents have included Eugene O'Neill, Judy Collins and Henry Luce. And if details of the shooting remain uncertain, the impact was devastating, especially for friends and relatives of Mr. Valluzzo, a hands-on dynamo who knew his way around a factory floor, tank engine, osso bucco recipe and museum-quality rare-book collection. He founded, nurtured and helped finance an improbably ambitious military museum in Danbury, and his death on the Friday before Memorial Day in its timing and its horror left friends gasping after answers. "The story everyone has heard seems pretty odd and unfathomable," said Samuel Johnson, executive director of the Military Museum of Southern New England, which became one of Mr. Valluzzo's passions. But if you knew John it's 10 times more unfathomable. He was all about making everything better. He was a wonderful person. Never violent. To be honest, I can't imagine what he'd be like violent. The whole thing makes no sense. All I can think is that it's a terrible mistake. As first recounted by the police, the shooting occurred around 5:15 p.m. after Ridgefield officers responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at Mr. Valluzzo's estate. The account by the Connecticut State Police says that officers responded to the scene where they confronted Mr. Valluzzo, who was armed with a handgun, in the yard outside his house. The police said they ordered him to put down the weapon and instead he refused to comply and raised the weapon toward the officers, at which point one of them, Jorge Romero, a seven-year veteran of the Ridgefield police, began firing. An autopsy said Mr. Valluzzo died of multiple gunshot wounds. But other accounts suggest something more complicated. Frank Weller, 61, a documentary filmmaker and author from New Milford, and the founder of an organization that saves horses from being slaughtered, said he was good friends with Mr. Valluzzo and his girlfriend, Anna Parille, 53, a real estate agent and children's book author. She has her own residence in Danbury, but sometimes stayed at Mr. Valluzzo's house, he said. "They definitely had their arguments at times," he said. According to an account he said he was given by Ms. Parille, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, Ms. Parille went to the house because she was going to a wedding and wanted to get some clothes she had there. According to his account, Ms. Parille and Mr. Valluzzo got into an argument, and she called a friend in Florida. The friend then called the Ridgefield police, saying Mr. Valluzzo was drunk and brandishing a gun. Neither Mr. Valluzzo nor Ms. Parille expected that the friend would call the police, or that the police would show up at the house, he said. There is a wrought-iron gate that blocks the driveway but it was open, allowing officers to come up the driveway to the house, he said. "Anna and John were in the kitchen," Mr. Weller said. Off the back door of the kitchen, there's a step-down to a portico. That's where the cops came. John was standing inside the kitchen. Anna said all she heard was: "Freeze! Freeze! Pop! Then she heard a thud - him falling - and then him moaning. Shortly afterward, Mr. Weller said, "the police officer was very upset and kept saying, "What did I do?" The other officers were trying to console him. The State Police are investigating. Officer Romero has been placed on desk duty in the meantime. Officer Romero, who was unavailable for comment, came to the Ridgefield police from Bridgeport as his marriage was falling apart and his wife and daughter moved to the area. He divorced in 2008. People who know Officer Romero, who is partial to muscle cars and weight lifting, described him as good-natured and low-key. He was used to a tougher, more sordid world than the relatively placid reaches of Ridgefield and sometimes expressed a wry amusement at the relatively sedate pace of police life there. In Bridgeport, for example, he conducted a prostitution sting at the Pleasant Moments Café in 2005 that was later written up in clinical if salacious detail. In 2001, he suffered minor injuries in a scuffle that ensued as he investigated reports that a 7-year-old girl was offered drugs. Kristin Hussey contributed reporting from Stamford, Conn., Lisa Schwartz from New York City, and Eric Silverstadt from Ridgefield.