Just in! Murder in Dover-Foxcroft, Cops gun down assailant at Fairground.

More from the Bangor Daily News:

....."[A witness] said a man walked into the nursing home and asked for a maintenance worker by name. After he confirmed the man’s identity, the gunman pulled out a pistol and shot him, the contractor said. He said two or three others also saw what happened"......

As many as 12 shots may have been fired.

Just minutes later the shooter was accosted by police at the Dover fairgrounds: ......."The assailant was shot and killed by a state trooper,” McCausland said.....The trooper mortally wounded the gunman, who later died at a hospital.......The gunman was not immediately identified.

The gunman was Identified as Michael Curtis, by a female relative and the Dover fire chief. Mr Curtis had been deputy fire chief in 2007 and currently works at the Piscataquis Sherriffs office.

Yesterday the body of a woman was found in the river in Dover, No details were released by the police. The rumor mill this am terms it a "suicide". We have no idea if they have any connection to one another or not.

BDN story

WC

The gunman was Identified as Michael Curtis... currently works at the Piscataquis Sherriffs office.

Geeze!

From the Bangor Daily News:

......A team of detectives and the Maine State Police command staff, including the chief, Col. Robert Williams, arrived in Dover-Foxcroft late Tuesday morning to begin the investigation"......

Why would the chief be involved in an investigation like this one?

WC

Did the fellow work for the sherrif's department? That's what the report said, but any confirmation on that? Could this be the second PD employee killed by police?

Bangor Daily News update 4:30pm:

....." A Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher shot and killed a maintenance man at a nursing facility Tuesday morning, then drove his truck to the nearby fairgrounds, where he was shot and killed by police, authorities said.".......

....."Both men killed Tuesday lived in Sangerville. Schneider was married for 16 years to Curtis’ current wife and had two children with her"........

Motive is currently unknown. Udo Schneider, 53 was the victim murdered at the nursing home. Several witnesses to that shooting said Curtis pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot Schneider multiple times in what was described as a "cold blooded murder". Curtis drove away in his truck where he was surrounded by officers at the Dover Fairgrounds, a short distance away. Some conversation was had with Curtis, perhaps over a radio link, when he finally made some movement that led to him being fatally shot by Trooper Jon Brown.

The AG's office is investigating where the second incident was a police shooting.

Bangor Daily News story

WC

The AG's office is investigating where the second incident was a police shooting.

The first one wasn't?

Curtis was married to Joe Guyotte's daughter (Guyotte is the D-F fire chief and was quoted in the BDN article as confirming Curtis was the shooter) Curtis must have divorced Guyotte's daughter, moved and married the victim's ex wife since I last lived in Dover.
The Christmas season really seems to be bloody, plus the obituaries often fill two pages in the BDN this time of year.

More from the BDN, crime scene photo at Hill Top manor;

I don't know if those are shell casings that are marked by those little yellow tags or not. But if they are there were lots of shots fired at the first encounter.

You can read anything you want in the comments section beneath the news stories in today's papers, and I don't put much stock in what I read. Several commentors, who seem to have some knowledge other than news stories say that Curtis was shot in the back at the fairgrounds. I have absolutely no idea if that is even remotely true, but have wondered why the Chief of the Maine State police would personally be involved in this investigation. That seems very unusual to me, and I have tried to read between the lines and figure out why he would be involved in this case. Police shootings happen often even in Maine these days and it does not seem to me that it is the usual course of business for the Chief to become personally involved in the investigation.

Hopefully we may know more about this in time.

WC

Tom:

Are you still of the opinion that cops give a huge break to other cops IN MAINE? I think the evidence is to the contrary.

cops give a huge break to other cops

Holy cow! They're shooting ANYONE now!

I think this makes at least 7 people fatally shot in Dover-Foxcroft this year.

Others:

Amy, Coty, Monica and Steven Lake (Murder-suicide)
Ryan Mayo (Shot by his brother who was charged with murder)

TomC, the three Lake murders were in Dexter.

I live in Garland, on the border of Dover-Foxcroft. Yes there have been several fatal shootings here this year, one a half mile from my home, but I don't think it is anything in the water, or that the people here are necessarily any worse than any other place in Maine. Quite frankly I would rather take my chances on the streets of Dover after dark than the streets of Portland, but that is just me.

There is good and evil everywhere. Every small town and city in the country has drug problems. Bangor has lots of trouble with bath salts at the moment. But Bangor is a service communitiy for this whole area and many homeless and troubled youth gather there for the services and handouts available. I am sure there is some of this stuff in Dover too, as well as many other communities.

More and more in our society, people, maybe reflecting what they see in movies and modern culture, seem bent on settling their problems with violence. I am not naive enough to know that once in a while viloence may be appropriate, as in someone busting into your home in a middle of the night home invasion. In that case violence may save your life.

But for troubles over domestic situations, and other lesser squabbles, violence is not really the answer. Some people are using these cases to condemn gun owners. But in the Lake case, the Mayo case, and this one yesterday, the gun did not kill anyone. A person had to take that gun in his hand, with malice in his heart, and use it as a tool to take out his revenge or whatever kind of vendetta it was.

The trouble is that with the increasing numbers of people who are willing to use violence to settle issues, comes the greater need for ordinary citizens to be equipped and trained to deal with this kind of trouble if it comes their way. Taking away guns, as some of the posters to the newspaper articles suggest solves nothing as long as the propensity for viloence pervades our society.

As has been proven in these cases, and others around the country, the police cannot take care of us, 24-7. Ultimately we are responsible for taking care of ourselves. Even a tree limb can be used to kill a person. Trying to eliminate weapons that could possibly be used by criminals, serves only to keep the honest folk from protecting themselves.

We had a situation here a few weeks back, on a Friday night. We had all been asleep, but my wife wakes up often. At one point she saw a car drive very slowly by our house, and heard it stop just up the road. She woke me and we got up to investigate it. It seems that a young woman (teen) was entertaining nearby. Cars came down our (very) rural road, slowed down and sometimes stopped in front of our house. Loud hollering, loud music, and car doors slamming, and engine revving took place, this at around 1am. Neeless to say we were armed and on high alert, at least til we found out what was happening. Some intoxicated young men stopped at the end of our driveway and for a moment there we thought they were coming in. We tried calling for police help but nobody came by that night. We were very much on our own. Trying to deal with drunken rowdies, especially when carrying a firearm is NOT the situation I want to be in, ever.

Eventually it settled down and we got back to sleep around 3 am. It was scary to think about after, particularly with all the home invasion robberies and murders there are these days. We are as vigilant as we can possibly be, but you never know what is coming your way.

All of this unsettledness, in my estimation, is a product of what a large segment of our society is becoming. Look at the comments to any story in the newspapers and you can see it plain. People are ready to fight at the drop of a hat as our society becomes wrapped up in materialism and selfishness. The Me-First attitude, in many of us, has potential for dire happenings at a moments notice.

It is not a problem of any particular town, but rather a problem of our society.

WC

TomC, the three Lake murders were in Dexter.

You're right - the next town over. I have a relative that lives between Dover and Dexter, in my mind I guess I was thinking of it as one place.

Several commentors, who seem to have some knowledge other than news stories say that Curtis was shot in the back at the fairgrounds. I have absolutely no idea if that is even remotely true, but have wondered why the Chief of the Maine State police would personally be involved in this investigation.

WC,
I heard the same thing from a much better source than the comment section of the BDN.
My understanding is that Curtis was married to the victim's ex-wife and that the victim's shooting was motivated by Curtis's learning that his wife was having an affair with her ex-husband (the victim).
Later, Curtis was at the fairgrounds talking to the Sheriff and some deputies when the trooper shot Curtis in the back. The deputies' response to that shooting was to tackle the trooper and take him to the ground.
Nevertheless, I suspect the AG's office will find the trooper's killing of Curtis to be justified.

Might I suggest -- wait for the investigation?

Why? Do you think it will have a different result than the 50-or-whatever investigations before it?

Tom:

In my experience, the reports of the AG's office have more pertinence to the events than your reaction, or mine, thereafter. There was one case in which it was recommended BY THE AG that the officers involved should be fired. The AG was wrong. To the extent that they have erred, they have done so on behalf of the dead guy, not the cops.

If you don't like the result, why don't you pony up the copying charges and review the entire thing, and then tell us where the AGs went wrong? You can do that. The AG's contact info is on maine.gov. You can do it with any case they have handled.

Even if the state trooper did shoot the gunman in the back, that fact alone says nothing about the situation. I can imagine a situation where people talking to the assailant appeared to be in immediate danger of being shot themselves, therefore the trooper takes action. The event surrounding the actions will be so emotionally charged that people around town telling who reacted to what is nothing more than hearsay. All the pieces need to be put together, therefore, wait for the investigation. I'm tired of people painting law enforcement as trigger happy idiots. They are men and women who unlike on "Law and Order", do not have to deal with this type of scenario every day - Thank God.

No Tom ,as long as it meets the statue governing use of force by a LEO .

I am more amazed by the number of people who see the resolution of these matters requiring killing somone.

As I said late yesterday, when I heard that the Chief of the Maine State Police was coming to Dover and getting "personally involved" in this investigation, my instincts went into high gear. I asked myself what would bring the chief himself here when he has a department full of capable people to handle the investigation. First I thought maybe one of the dead people was "high profile" but did not feel real sure on that after hearing more last night.

I live only 7 miles away and the rumor mill is very active, but I will not add to it at the moment, waiting for more good info to come from official sources. But if what Virgil says he heard is only remotely connected to what really happened I could easily see why the Chief would want to be in on the ground floor of the investigation.

Between the Dover PD and the county sherriff's office, both only a mile or so away, there must have been several officers very close by so there must have been quite a few people who witnessed what happened at the fairgrounds so more will come out shortly I hope.

WC

so more will come out shortly I hope.

Or getting their stories straight!

There's been legal creep for "justifiable use of force." In another thread I posted stories about how force was found to be "justifiable" when a man was pointing a gun at HIS OWN head, and "refused to follow police instructions." So, merely standing there with a gun and not responding to police shouting at you is cause to be shot. In one case, and man was roughed up by police and arrested even though the officer stanted that the man did not pose a danger, by was not "following police instructions." Use of deadly force as thus been shown to be justified when only a police officer beleives that some COULD cause harm. Well, that pretty much allows use of force in ANY circumstance. As a result, even innocent citizens, acting in a reasonable manner have been killed by police, and the killing was found to be "justified". And the police assume NO responsibility to the family of the citizen killed. It's just "Sorry! Tough luck!" (After they lie and smear the victim's reputation, of course!)

I'll wait for information before judging.

In another thread I posted stories about how force was found to be "justifiable" when a man was pointing a gun at HIS OWN head, and "refused to follow police instructions."

Tom:

You mentioned Noel Salinas in another thread. You include the fact of him pointing a gun at his own head. You don't mention this:

"According to Prendergast, the owner of a commercial lot where Salinas had his motor home parked called police and told them he had an argument with Salinas, who had threatened to shoot both the property owner and himself."

Prendergast is the police spokesperson, so his reliability just might be questioned. Did Salinas REALLY threaten the property owner?

Your article quotes the on-site manager: "McMurray said he and the property owner met with Salinas early Thursday and told him he had to leave. Salinas became angry and threatened the owner and McMurray, and they called police."

So -- this guy wasn't initially or primarily suicidal He was homicidal. He says so. Civilians confirmed it. The cops won't wait until he shoots someone to make the point.

Suicidal guys are often also homicidal.
Another example

Another

Yet another

"Shoots cop and then shoots himself" is an unfortunately common story. For logical reasons, it doesn't happen the other way around.

Oops -- spoke too soon.

A taxi cab pulled up. . . . the passenger shot himself with a handgun as the officers approached.

. . . [T}he passenger, identified as 49-year-old Gregory McCracken, then raised the gun toward the officers. McCracken was shot in the torso by one of the officers, who wasn't identified.

Here's a "suicidal" guy who shot two officers:

"Two police officers came to the duplex at about 8:45 a.m. They'd received a report that a man inside planned to kill himself by overdosing on pills. The next thing they knew, the man was shooting at police.

These incidents are pretty well known, and make police understandably reluctant to permit guys like this to approach them with a firearm in hand. They can, and often do shoot cops before the cops can react.

"

A single gunshot to the front of his torso mortally wounded Curtis, according to Brenda Kielty, a special assistant in the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

BDN

Reports of "shots fired", but killed by a single gunshot wound, I suppose it's possible he turned to see where the shots were coming from and took oneto the front torso.

Virgil:

One thing is becoming increasingly clear -- the "sources" who told you about Curtis being shot in the back were flatly, wholly, completely wrong. Kudos to you for not simply buying what they said at face value. You have provided another illustration of why my mantra is:

Wait for the investigation

-- Which apparently you are doing.

tjc,

The person I heard from had no first hand knowledge. Neither did the person my source heard it from. But my info has a strong link to the investigation. Admittedly, I don't recall if I was told he was shot in the back or shot from behind, and it could very well have been the latter. Also admittedly, I am not saying what happenend because I don't know, I am only relaying what I have heard and contemplating possibilities, which I am free to do. Without any firsthand knowledge, waiting for the AG's report before making any conclusions is certainly appropriate. I have made no conclusions thus far. At the same time, I am not sure one should automatically take the conclusions/reports stemming from an investigation at face value either.

Suicidal guys are often homicidal

Baloney. There were between 30,000 and 60,000 suicides in the last year. Tell me how many of those people were also "homicidal"? One-one thousandth? Less?

Typical self-justification - you are providing a few VERY RARE anecdodes to justify a policy that DOESN'T APPLY in more than 999 of 1000 cases.

Tom:

I have personal experience with suicidal guys also being homicidal. I represented Carly Conley that night. I was onsite about an hour after it happened.

*****************************************************************************

On the evening of December 17, 2003, Vincent Berube set out to commit suicide. He parked his truck in a vacant lot in Lewiston, Maine, and began to slit his wrists and stab himself in the chest. He was interrupted when a car pulled up behind him. Assuming it was a police car, Berube left the lot and drove to the fenced-in parking area behind the Lewiston police station to, in his words, “raise a little hell.”

As Berube drove his truck into the compound, Officer Carly Conley walked out of the back door of the police station toward her cruiser in the compound. She heard the truck door open, which was followed by yelling and screaming and the sound of windows being smashed. Conley approached the truck, and believing the driver to be highly agitated, she radioed for backup. As she rounded the back of the truck and came within ten feet of Berube, she saw him raise a shining object, which appeared to her to be a large hammer. Officer Conley is five feet, three inches tall and
weighs 125 pounds, while Berube appeared to be about six feet tall and weigh 200 pounds. Conley yelled to Berube to stop and put his weapon down. Believing Berube would strike her, Conley fired at him until he fell to the ground.
**********************************************************************

Here's another:

http://www.med.uscourts.gov/opinions/kravchuk/2001/mjk_05162001_2-00cv26...

Over the next two days, Kaluzynski spoke with Poulin and other CCC
staff and pressed them to do something about Sidor. Kaluzynski told them that Sidor had
threatened to kill himself if anyone attempted to take him to the hospital and that he had not slept
or eaten for several days, was increasingly agitated, and was causing his mother distress.
. . .
Before they reached the door, Sidor emerged from the house and began yelling at the officers in Polish and waving a sheathed sword in the air. As
the Troopers backed away from Sidor, Trooper Armstrong drew his service revolver and yelled at Sidor to drop the weapon. Sidor advanced on Trooper Holmes and drew the sword from its scabbard. Sidor struck Holmes three times on the arm and began to swing the sword a fourth
time when Armstrong fired several rounds at Sidor, who died from bullet wounds.
***************************************************************************

The rest of America is pretty familiar with the term "suicide by cop". My personal database includes about 5 instances of this. Probably the majority of the rest involve the "crazed frontal assault" (my term) where the chances of survival by the perpetrator should have been known by him to be nil.

In this case, there is no dispute that the person who was shot by the officer had just committed a murder with a firearm.