A combat-wounded Marine filed a federal lawsuit against two Maine police departments after an officer shot him in his house.
Robert Farrington couldn’t hear officers knocking on his door to serve him an arrest warrant in 2019 because he had hearing loss from his time serving in Afghanistan, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
He thought that police were burglars when he finally came to his door with a handgun after his fiancee woke him up. His suit challenged the validity of the warrant they used and alleges that police violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they came to arrest him on a domestic violence charge that was later dismissed.
Police went to Farrington’s house after midnight on Nov. 23, 2019, to arrest him. It ended with Farrington, then 27, being shot from behind by Augusta officer Sabastian Guptill. The bullet traveled through his pelvis before lodging in a bone on his right side.
The experience was as traumatic as “anything he had seen during his two tours of duty in Afghanistan,” the lawsuit said.
He survived but is permanently disabled, despite surgery and years of physical therapy, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District of Maine. Farrington was on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2010 to 2016. He served in Afghanistan and the Pacific Rim.
Among others, the lawsuit names the Somerset Regional Communications Center, Augusta and Fairfield police departments, their chiefs and Guptill.
Augusta and Fairfield police, as well as Somerset County officials, did not respond to requests for comment. The attorney general’s office last August found that Guptill acted in self-defense when he shot Farrington.
Farrington was shot during a combat deployment in 2013 in Afghanistan, recovered and returned for another tour of duty. He had tinnitus and PTSD from the 2013 deployment, the lawsuit said. His house had a special doorbell that rang at a frequency that allowed him to hear.
Farrington was asleep with his fiancee when police arrived after midnight in 2019 to arrest him for domestic violence against another woman, according to the lawsuit.
Guptill knocked on a side sliding glass door for several minutes, but Farrington did not wake up. No officers rang the doorbell designed for his tinnitus, the lawsuit said.
Police got a temporary felony warrant, which is not legal under the Fourth Amendment, the lawsuit said. The domestic violence case was a misdemeanor, which was later dismissed, Farrington’s attorney Kristine Hanly told the Bangor Daily News.
Officers spent about 8 minutes at the home, knocking on doors and peering in windows, before returning to their cruisers. Guptill started to leave, while the other two officers were in their cruisers.
Around that time, his fiancee arose and woke Farrington up, the lawsuit said. An officer saw a light turn on in the house and police returned. Guptill went to the sliding door.
His fiancee called 911 while Farrington got his registered Beretta 9mm and went to the sliding glass door, the lawsuit said. He was carrying the gun at his side and pointed down.
The couple thought they were victims of a burglary attempt, the lawsuit said.
Farrington needed to unlock the door, so he placed his gun on a side table to remove a piece of wood in the sliding door track and he turned slightly and bent over, the lawsuit said.
His gun was not in his hand when Guptill yelled, “He’s got a gun! Augusta police!” the lawsuit said.
Guptill then fired 12 rounds through the sliding door and side of the house. One bullet hit Farrington from behind.
Guptill said he identified himself as a police officer and told Farrington to drop the gun, but Farrington raised it, the Maine attorney general’s office found. That’s when Guptill started shooting while ducking for cover because he thought his life was in danger, according to the AG.
Farrington did not fire the gun, the lawsuit said.
Farrington experienced a “hail of gunfire directed at him in his own home which caused emotional distress so severe that no reasonable person should be expected to endure it,” the lawsuit said.
Farrington had well-managed post-traumatic stress disorder from his time as an active duty Marine, and he now experiences daily symptoms because of the shooting, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit is asking for a jury trial and an unspecified amount of money.
