LEWISTON, Maine — A report detailing the police response to the Lewiston shootings accuses the Cumberland County Sheriff's tactical team of being intoxicated and almost running over other officers.
Portland police filed its "after action report" in December. The report became public Thursday.
In the report, Nick Goodman, commander of the Portland Police Department's Special Reaction Team, made three big claims. He wrote that multiple law enforcement agencies started "self-dispatching" to the scenes in Lewiston. He said that caused confusion for commanders, who did not know which agencies were on scene and how many officers were available.
Maine State Police testified to a commission investigating the shootings in February and during a hearing on February 15, state police Major Lucas Hare said, "People will hear something on the radio and they rush to help, and you end up with hundreds of law enforcement officers at that scene. There are times where that's what we want, but there's also times that makes the command and control and the decision-making process and searching very difficult."
The report claims "some of the Commanders had zero idea who was there for assets for them specifically," and "they also didn't know where the members of their specific teams were and who they were with."
In the report, Goodman claimed his tactical team was almost run over by Cumberland County's tactical team, called the Emergency Services Unit. The ESU is a multijurisdictional tactical team.
Goodman claimed his team was on a bridge when they heard an armored vehicle coming toward them. He said the vehicle suddenly "locked up its brakes and came to an abrupt halt," which Goodman said was about 20-30 feet away from Portland's armored vehicle.
Then, Goodman claimed the members in that ESU armored vehicle smelled of intoxicants, and that those officers told them they had just come from a funeral. He wrote that the Sheriff's tactical team did not know who assigned them to that same area.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce told NEWS CENTER Maine in a statement that no one ever filed a complaint with his office. He also wrote he was in the command post in Lewiston that night, and that he was never notified.
He said he called for an internal investigation, which found no one was determined to be intoxicated. Joyce declined to do an interview on camera, and did not reveal the details of that investigation.
Joyce wrote that he authorized his tactical team's response after hearing from a few members of law enforcement asking for any assistance in Lewiston.
A Maine State Police spokesperson wrote in a statement that neither Maine State Police command staff nor their tactical team commander assigned Cumberland County's team to the area where Portland's team was. The spokesperson said Portland officers first notified state police about the incident around about six hours into the manhunt.
Then, on December 7, during the debriefing with all the tactical teams from Maine, the Sheriff's tactical team was "confronted" about this incident, the spokesperson said.
Neither Portland police nor Joyce would answer questions about the controversy. Joyce and Portland police Chief Mark DuBois met Friday for more than an hour to discuss the situation, according to a police department spokesperson. Joyce told NEWS CENTER Maine that meeting was "productive," but did not discuss details.
Three independent sources tell NEWS CENTER Maine that Portland police are expected to testify to shooting commission sometime this month, when more details could be revealed.