Lawrence officer placed on leave after shooting alleged bat-wielding assailant

By Sarah N. Mattero, Globe Correspondent

A Lawrence police officer shot a man while trying to stop him from beating another man with a baseball bat outside a night club early today, the Essex district attorney’s office said.

Around 1:15 a.m., Officer William Green was in uniform working a detail at Club Copa on Mill Street in Lawrence when he came across the beating in an alley adjacent to the building, prosecutors said.

According to the district attorney, Green told the man, later identified as Jose Concepcion, 26, of Lawrence, to drop the bat. Concepcion continued to beat the other man until Green fired two rounds from his department-issued firearm and struck Concepcion in the chest, District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett’s office said.

Concepcion was listed in stable condition at Lawrence General Hospital, where he was arraigned this afternoon on two counts of assault with intent to murder and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, prosecutors said. He pleaded not guilty.

The 27-year-old beating victim was initially treated at Lawrence General Hospital and then transferred to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for blunt force trauma to his head and stab wounds to the torso, prosecutors said.

Green was placed under administrative leave per department protocol, the district attorney’s office said. He has been with the department for seven years.

Concepcion will return to court on Dec. 5, said Carrie Kimball Monahan, spokeswoman for the Essex District Attorney.