MAINE, USA — For the 11th time in 2022, the Office of the Maine Attorney General is investigating a police shooting.
According to police, the most recent incident happened late Thursday evening in the town of Mexico.
Chief Roy Hodsdon with Mexico police said officers were confronted by an armed man when they responded to a report of a domestic violence disturbance late Thursday night.
Police said Officer Dustin Broughton fired multiple shots and 22-year-old Daniel Tibbetts, of Mexico, was transported to a nearby hospital with gunshot wounds. He is "expected to survive," police said.
Chief Hodsdon said Officer Broughton has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. This will now become the 18th open investigation by the Office of the Maine Attorney General into a police shooting.
"We understand these issues are emotionally charged and wanted to make sure folks knew how seriously we take these investigations and how important transparency is to us in issuing our decisions," Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey wrote in a statement to NEWS CENTER Maine. "All our materials are on our website, including a detailed letter about each decision as well as the corresponding report of the Deadly Force Review Panel."
Over the past five years, Maine has seen an increase in the number of police shooting incidents.
In 2022, there have been 11 police shooting incidents so far.
There were four police shootings in 2018, eight in 2019, and five in 2020. In 2021, there were 11 police shootings.
"It is no mystery that there is a lot of pain in our communities right now," Frey wrote in the statement. "Police are seeing many instances of folks who have fallen through the cracks of the mental health and substance abuse safety net. Understanding this is why my office supported forming the Deadly Force Review Panel, to discuss the circumstances surrounding these incidents and recommend changes that might prevent them from happening in the first place. While we all want to prevent police shootings, my role is to apply a narrow legal definition of what constitutes a defensible use of deadly force by the officers."
There are still several open investigations into police shootings. Seven of the 11 police shootings that occurred in 2022 so far remain under investigation.
There are also seven open investigations into police shootings in 2021 still. All five investigations into police shootings in 2020 have been completed, and there are still three open investigations into police shootings from 2019.
Since 2019, there have been 35 instances of police shootings in Maine, and 21 people have been killed.
You can view all reports into police shootings by the Office of the Maine Attorney General here.