Above: Video of the aftermath of the Margaretville shooting, April 25, 2007.
Four years ago this week, Travis D. Trim, a 23-year-old parole violator, died in a shootout in a farmhouse on the edge of Margaretville that also killed State Trooper David C. Brinkerhoff.
According to a State Police investigation of the incident, which was detailed in a 2008 New York Times article, the standoff began when Trim shot a State Police trooper in a Margaretville gas station and ended with Trim surrounded in the farmhouse, exchanging gunfire with multiple officers.
After a year of investigation, the State Police report concluded that a bullet fired by Brinkeroff in the melee killed Trim, and that Brinkerhoff was himself killed by a bullet fired by a fellow officer. Twenty-eight shots were fired in total during the incident. The report also found that the police accidentally burned down the farmhouse with Trim's body still inside, destroying most of the evidence.
SUNY Delhi professor Kirby Olson visited the scene of the shootout a few days after it happened. The experience inspired a poem, which you can read below:
RUBBERNECKING THE MARGARETVILLE MASSACRE
We drove to Margaretville
The day after the headlines in the NYT
The fog clung to the tops of mountains
A faint purplish blush brushed the tree tips
Through Andes with its ruined April streetsWe went over the mountain
Drove past the Sunoco where the shooter shot his first officer
Who’d pulled him over for a routine stop
We parked behind a DEC police van
& bought Finnish licorice at the candy shoppe
A drug dealer had held off 500 police from a small houseI grabbed a map of Delaware County
I looked for Cemetery Road where the final stand
Resulted in 2 dead another trooper and Travis Trim
The mysterious 23-year-old who’d fired so many rounds
Out the windowsA few cops still milled about
We ate our licoriceThe dealer had been
Smoked by New York’s Finest.Saw their grey suits & their stripes and brimmed hats
Standing before an open smouldering hole
Where nothing stood but a collapsed houseWe sucked salty licorice which exists
By virtue of its beauty -- $5.99 a poundGrateful to the police
Amidst the red-blushed early spring mountainsApril 28, 2007
