The agency that oversees police in Maine declined to discipline a sheriff and the two armed men he allowed to work in Oxford County schools despite not being certified as cops.
Though it can be a crime to carry a gun on school property, the Maine Criminal Justice Academy instead issued so-called letters of guidance on Sept. 15 to Oxford County Sheriff Christopher Wainwright and the two the county hired as school resource officers without the required credentials, Michael Kaspereen and Percy Turner.
They do not constitute discipline, but t he letters will be placed in their files at the academy for 10 years and may be used to inform any future potential disciplinary action.
The academy’s board of trustees hands down letters of guidance to educate police or express concern over actions that they believe are not severe enough to warrant actual discipline, which ranges from warnings to revoking an officer’s certification.
The heads of police agencies must “ensure that any new hires are, indeed, validly certified before deploying them in a law enforcement capacity,” states Wainwright’s letter from the academy. “If they carry a firearm on school property before recertification, they may be committing a Class E crime.”
The academy’s decision follows Bangor Daily News reporting that revealed Oxford County commissioners in 2018 approved the hiring of Kaspereen to work in Hiram-based School Administrative District 55 and Turner to work in Rumford-based Regional School Unit 10 — giving them guns and badges — even though they were not certified as law enforcement officers.
School resource officers are supposed to be law enforcement vested with the power to make arrests, according to Maine law. Turner went nearly four years before getting certified, and Kaspereen was not certified at the time of the BDN’s reporting in May.
According to the academy, Kaspereen now has a provisional status that gives him until mid-December to either complete a final certification exam or forfeit his authority as a law enforcement officer.
The two had previous careers in law enforcement, but their experience did not prevent them from having to get recertified to make sure they were up to date on new laws and practices, and to give them the powers of arrest.
Turner had been out of the force for about five years before being hired to work as a school resource officer. Kaspereen had been out for eight.
If retired officers want to return to work, they must be fully recertified before assuming their duties, state the letters of guidance for Kaspereen and Turner.
Otherwise, “the retiree may not serve as a law enforcement officer with the power to make arrests or the authority to carry a firearm in the course of duty,” they say.
Wainwright’s letter also reminds him that he is required by law to maintain records on the training of his officers. After the start of each year, he must also submit to the academy a report containing a list of all his officers and the dates of their employment with the sheriff’s office.
“Agency heads who fail to maintain accurate records or who submit inaccurate reports risk jeopardizing the status of their law enforcement officers’ certificates of eligibility,” the academy wrote.
Wainwright did not respond to questions about what he thought about the academy’s decision. All of Oxford County’s school resource officers are currently still employed in their original posts, according to the county administrative office.
