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Biagio Kauvil was looking for help.
In the days leading up to his death at the hands of a Hinsdale police officer, he had reached out to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center and other law enforcement entities to explain his growing paranoia and worry that he was being surveilled and targeted.
The morning of Wednesday, Jan. 7, began as a well-being check by police officers on Kauvil at his mother's home in Hinsdale. But it collapsed into tragedy.
A partial account of events was put forward by the Berkshire District Attorney's Office during a press conference held days after the killing. Officers from both the Hinsdale and Dalton police departments -- including Hinsdale Police Chief Shawn Boyne -- responded to the self-registered check on Kauvil at 53 Off South St. No mental health co-responder was on the scene. What happened next, and why, remains unclear. Kauvil had locked himself in the bedroom of one of his younger siblings. After speaking with him for some time and further establishing he was in a mental health crisis, police burst in and found Kauvil with a gun in his hand. Per the DA’s account, the officers made the decision to go in despite knowing both that Kauvil had explicitly expressed paranoia about law enforcement and that he had a legal license to carry a firearm. Police said they thought he was not actively carrying a weapon.
According to the incomplete official explanation of the incident, at no point prior to the move was there any indication that he posed an immediate threat to anyone around him. An ambulance was already en route to the home to take Kauvil to the hospital for further care.
Less than a minute later, in a whirlwind of Taser deployments, smashed furniture, and rounds fired, Kauvil was dead - shot in the head.
For the first time since the killing, Kauvil's mother is speaking out. She sat down with WAMC to tell her son's story.
“I come from a family of a lot of tragedies and very difficult events," said Jen Kauvil. "And Biagio was there with me as a little boy and at the hardest times. And I definitely have massive PTSD, and he was just such a cool little kid. I would put him on my back and walk everywhere because I didn't drive at the time- I mean, I just so loved him. And he's just the cutest, funniest kid.”
Jen remembers her son as a spontaneous, vibrant personality with a contagious smile, whisking his family away to Maine for a beach day to laugh and play in the sun and waves. His siblings were his world. Now, they’re left broken.
“Oh, my God, he loved them," she told WAMC. "He called them his best friends. He would be the type that would take his sister out and her best friend and take them to go out to eat and go to Five Below and listen to cool music- Just really loved them. Like, absolutely. I can't say anymore. Biagio's most important people in his life were me and his siblings. I truly, can honestly say through this loss, I felt my son loved me so much, and he accepted me, he didn't judge me, and he was just wicked cool.”
Jen stresses that Biagio managed to be the kind, caring man he grew into through hard work and in the face of the challenges.
“I've had so many people come up to me and they'd all say the same thing- ‘oh my god, I loved your son,’" she told WAMC. "'He always brought my groceries to my car.' And I would be like, Oh my God, that's awesome. Another girl told me that Biagio requested to have all his coworkers get five minutes a day of sunshine before they start their day. I thought, how funny my kid is, and I was just so proud of him for carrying himself like the nice young man that I brought him up to be.”
Biagio’s father is Haitian, making him a minority in the overwhelmingly white communities of both Hinsdale and Berkshire County at large. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Black people make up around just 4% of the population in the rural region. His mother said while she doesn’t “want to pull any card out” she is haunted by the idea that her son’s identity might have played a role in how the crisis was handled. She says the lack of mental health co-responders in the events that led up to his death remains an agonizing, unanswered question as well.
“I just don’t get that they did not get crisis involved," said Jen. "I don't understand. I don't understand. I just don't understand.”
The events of Jan. 7 have left her shattered.
“My daughter, she all through the whole day, she kept saying he was just so scared, and I know in my heart- I never wanted to believe anything with B, [that] B would be scared or lonely," Jen said to WAMC. "I just felt so protective of him, because he was with me through really awful trauma when he was young, and I always just wanted to protect my B. We had our moments, and whatever, we both can be strongminded. But when [my daughter] would say, he was so scared- And when I think about it now and I say that and I think of it, it makes me so, so, so sad inside to feel how scared he was. I mean, all those men on him and Tasing and broken furniture.”
Biago Kauvil’s family and friends have been waiting weeks for Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue’s findings on the incident. Questions remain about police conduct leading up to the killing, and if standard operating protocols were followed in the moments before an officer shot Kauvil in the head. The DA’s office says it’s waiting on reports from the State Police before releasing its final verdict on whether law enforcement’s response to Kauvil’s mental health crisis and resultant death was lawful. Hinsdale's Chief Boyne and another officer were shot during the incident — at least one from friendly fire — and have both since recovered from their injuries.
Jen Kauvil offered a message to her late son.
“Biagio, you know me," she said. "Mama Bear don't play, and I am here to get this justice and also make [people] aware of mental health, to not treat anybody that's having a hard time and any issue that's literally hurting inside to be ganged up on. The amount of people, the amount of time, and how it all went down is wrong, B, and I can feel you in my soul saying, 'Mom, I know you're going to protect me, I know you're going to stand up for me, I have the best advocate ever, because you love me, and I'm sorry, Mom, that this happened.'"
Biagio’s counsin Hannah Levardi describes him as having a peaceful, sweet soul. In the days since his death, she says she’s been approached by complete strangers with stories of him almost instinctively offering help, taking interest in their lives, and sharing his light.
“We have a wonderful neighbor by my house who- She's great, but we didn't have any other prior relationship, but she reached out to tell us that her and Biagio actually would walk their dogs together in the pits in Dalton," Levardi told WAMC. "We had an amazing gentleman come speak at his celebration of life to tell us how they met in the sauna at the gym and became buddies and then would go in the woods and forage for mushrooms and other plants.”
Everything about Jan. 7 is burned into her mind. She says Biagio’s struggles clearly required intervention in the days leading up to his last, but it was unclear from the get-go how helpful it would be.
This is not the first time Berkshire County has experienced fatal police responses to mental health crises involving a person of color. Most recently, 22-year-old Pittsfielder Miguel Estrella was killed in the midst of a crisis in March 2022. The police officers involved were absolved by the Berkshire DA’s office after an investigation that found their conduct lawful and consistent with use of force protocols.
Like her aunt Jen, Levardi wonders if her cousin's race played a role in the events leading up to his death. WAMC reached out to the Hinsdale Police Department with the family's concerns about racial bias in the incident, but received no response.
“As horrible as it is to say, when you have a Black man in a small town like this, when you know that he's calling for help and that there's police coming, it's already something that you have in your head- Like, this is not the best-case scenario," she said. "So, for us, or at least for me personally, it was just like a waiting game that morning, just to see what's going to play out. I hope it's OK, but in the back your head that whole time, I was thinking, this can't end up well with the amount of police officers that showed up that day.”
The dominant feeling for Levardi and her family is a sense of hopelessness.
“We really feel empty," she told WAMC. "For us, it's not just an investigation, it's not just a crime- It's our lives being completely switched forever. We lost one of the most important people in our family. So, this travesty for us, we just feel so lost, and it just feels like we have no control for something that we wish we could just get the answers for. We wish we could just have everything play out in in the proper way, you know? We keep saying we're fighting and we just want justice, and that's the truth- At the end of the day, we can never get justice, because they can never bring him back to life. He's forever gone, forever 27.”
Hannah’s mother Nikki, Biagio’s aunt, says the family’s ordeal has been intensified by social media, where people who knew nothing about their late loved one have unleashed pure bile.
“People making comments about things, and saying stuff- You know, the kid asked for help, dude," she said. "For three days we had to, I had to tell my nieces and nephews and my sister, just know that he loves you, know that he was a family man. Know that from up and down, he- We're not going to believe anything we hear. But they continue to let people slander his name."
A special town meeting in Hinsdale on March 11 saw voters approve an administrative review of the police department. While Kauvil’s death isn’t the only focus of the audit, it will include an independent, professional assessment of the department’s policies, protocols, operations, and procedures.
Hannah Levardi’s biggest wish is that her cousin Biagio knew the impact he left on the world around him.
“I wish he was able to physically be here to understand and see that, because I don't think anybody understands that while they're here, you know?" she told WAMC. "No one understands their impact. And it sucks that in order to understand most people's impact is through death, once they're not here anymore.”
Quinton O'Brien-Garvey has been Biagio’s best friend since the third grade.
“My wife is my soulmate and he's my soul friend," he said. "It's just meant to be. We always loved the same music, like Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. We always shared the same interests across the board- Food and being outdoors and just everything. Yeah, it's hard to put into words.”
Music was a huge part of Biagio’s life.
“One of our favorite things to do is listen to the Grateful Dead and listen to some of the lyrics, and he'd just look at me and be like, what does that mean? What were they what were they trying to say?" he said. "And it was just really fun, just trying to hang out and pick apart music. That was something that we always love to do.”
It was always a good time with Biagio. O'Brien-Garvey remembers a trip to Cape Cod, cooking on an open fire and lounging in hammocks on the beach.
“We're hanging out, and we're just watching the sunset, and he just looked at me, he's like, ‘Dude, I'm so grateful to be here, and, like, grateful that we've always been friends,’" he said. "And, yeah, it was just- That's a really special memory of mine.”
Biagio had been acting strangely to O'Brien-Garvey in the days leading up to his death. The unusually standoffish behavior from such a trusted, intimate friend left him anxious and concerned. When the end came, and a call from Biagio’s crying sister came in, O'Brien-Garvey raced to the hospital to be with his friend, but was unable to enter the locked down emergency room to share a final moment.
“I've had some people be like, ‘Oh, he's the one who was, like, on the FBI list, right? I saw that on Facebook.’ I'm like, ‘no, he, he called the FBI because he was scared the police were trying to kill him, and they did.’ It wasn't that he wanted, it's that he was wanting help," he told WAMC. "So, I've just been doing everything I can to educate people on what really happened, and just clearing his name, making sure that people know what a good person he was, and that he wasn't looking to hurt himself or anybody else. He was looking to save himself, really, to protect himself.”
O'Brien-Garvey says he hopes the tragedy underscores the dire need for men's mental health resources in a chaotic, tumultuous world.
The weeks since Biagio’s death have been painful and slow.
“Every day I'm just waiting for him to text me," said O'Brien-Garvey. "Every night, every other night, I have a dream about him, and it's just hard. It's just- There's a huge hole in my life now, and my family too. My grandmother loved him, my mom loved him, my brother, everyone I know that I'm close to is also close with him. So, it's just been just a huge hole in everyone's lives that he's not there.”
While Biagio’s life was cut short, O'Brien-Garvey feels like he managed to accomplish so much.
“He just was always trying to learn and be a better person," he told WAMC. "And he really succeeded in that, I would say. He was the best version of himself that I'd ever seen, and just really inspired me to be better too.”
One way Biagio Kauvil worked on himself was by teaching himself to play guitar. He wanted to learn his favorite songs and better appreciate the art that inspired him. O’Brien-Garvey supplied WAMC with this recording of his late friend playing the folk song “The House of the Rising Sun." It’s a dark song, a song about a young man’s squandered potential and lost promise. The clip isn’t long, and it ends abruptly. When Kauvil plays the song, you can hear him lean into its depths. He wasn’t afraid to look into the darkness to try and understand.
