Police officers in three separate shootings in Pittsfield, Lewiston and Topsham were justified in their use of deadly force, the Office of the Maine Attorney General said Wednesday.
Two of the shootings resulted in the deaths of the suspects — Gregory Lasselle, 27, of Pittsfield and Kourtney Sherwood, 37, of Auburn — three days apart earlier this year, in February. Kyle Edwards, then 26, of Auburn was shot by Lewiston police in January 2021 but survived the gunshot wound.
The Maine attorney general’s office reviews every case involving police use of deadly force to determine if the officer was justified. The office has never found an officer unjustified.
The incident that led to Lasselle’s death began on the afternoon of Feb. 24 when his parents came to the Pittsfield police station to report that he was out of control and threatening suicide, according to the report. Officers attempted to communicate with him in phone calls and text messages, but Lasselle did not respond, so they returned to the police station where his parents were waiting.
Lasselle’s parents decided to spend the night in a local motel, the report said. When they returned to their home the next morning, Lasselle threatened his father with a gun and demanded that he read with him from the Bible. He also threatened to kill the family dog.
The parents were able to get out of the house and again seek help at the Pittsfield Police Department, the report said. Pittsfield officers sought assistance from the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office and the Maine State Police, whose tactical and crisis negotiations teams were activated at about 9:30 a.m.
Throughout the day, the team attempted to contact Lasselle without success, according to the report from the attorney general’s office. Troopers called his and his father’s phones in the home 61 times. Lasselle answered several times and made religious references but refused to engage with negotiators.
Lasselle came out of the house at about 6 p.m. as the sun set and it continued to snow with a rifle, but ignored commands to surrender and went back inside, the report said. When he came out a short time later to dump ashes from the woodstove, still carrying a rifle, troopers deployed a police dog to help apprehend Lasselle.
The dog slid past him on the packed snow but managed to muckle on to Lasselle’s left forearm. Maine State Police Sgt. George Neagle, Sgt. James Macdonald and Trooper Miles Carpenter, all members of the tactical team, quickly followed the dog.
As Neagle approached the steps, he saw Lasselle on his back in the doorway with the dog on top of him. Neagle jumped or fell as he went up the slippery steps as Lasselle shot toward other officers, the report said.
Neagle wound up on top of Lasselle and the dog. As they wrestled for the gun, Macdonald came up the steps, leaned over Neagle and fired a shot, but it was not fatal.
Cpl. Paul Casey approached the porch and saw Carpenter fall down as Lasselle fired his gun. Unsure of whether he had been shot, Casey fired multiple shots from his handgun that fatally struck Lasselle, according to the report. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Lasselle died of gunshot wounds to the head, neck and chest.
Attorney General Aaron Frey concluded that the officers acted in self-defense when they used deadly force against Lasselle.
He reached the same conclusion in clearing Topsham police Officer Matthew Bowers in the death of Sherwood on Feb. 28 on the Route 196 bypass near the Brunswick town line.
That incident began when Sherwood sped past an officer and through a red light. Once Sherwood stopped, she refused to cooperate and pointed a gun out her car window at officers. Bowers shot her with a long gun through the rear window. She died the next day of a single gunshot wound to the head, the report said.
In Lewiston, Edwards was shot by Lewiston police Sgt. David Levesque after he led police on a high-speed chase in a stolen pickup truck on Jan. 3, 2021. The officer fired after Edwards tried to back up and run over him, the report said. Levesque fired because he had no way to maneuver to avoid being hit by the truck and Edwards refused commands to surrender.
Edwards, now 28, was sentenced on July 1, 2021, to four years in prison with all but nine months and a day suspended to be followed by two years of probation after pleading guilty to eluding an officer, a Class C crime.
He is currently on probation, according to the Maine Department of Corrections.
