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In Maine, every time a law enforcement officer uses deadly force, the state attorney general’s office reviews the situation. Every review has found the use of force to be justified. Every single review, since 1990.
Because the AG’s review process has been too limited in scope and has failed to consider what led up to the use of force, lawmakers last year created a new panel to examine such situations.
The panel’s first review offers a detailed and honest assessment of an incident in Machiasport in which a member of the Maine Marine Patrol shot two people in December 2017.
The review found several deficiencies in the handling of the incident, which began when law enforcement officials chased Jason Jackson, a suspect in a home invasion, to the home of his former girlfriend, Tiffany Smith.
READ MORE ON THE MACHIASPORT SHOOTING
Marine Patrol Officer Matthew Carter, who was new to the patrol, but who already knew Jackson, found the pair on a landing, where Smith was trying to calm Jackson because he was suffering a mental health crisis and threatening to kill himself with a revolver, the report said.
Using a rifle to hold Jackson at gunpoint, Carter tried to persuade Jackson to drop his weapon and offered him help. However, when Jackson grew agitated and pointed his gun at the officer, Carter fired seven shots. It’s unclear how many times he hit Jackson, who lost part of his arm in the shooting. Carter also shot and wounded Smith.
A review by the attorney general’s office found the shooting to be justified.
The review panel’s assessment does not change that finding, but it did suggest changes to law enforcement policies and practices that could help avoid a similar outcome in the future.
Some of the panel’s findings are pretty simple. The Machias Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Maine Marine Patrol did not set up a central command post or establish a central channel for communicating when they responded to the scene that night. As a result, officers didn’t always know one another’s whereabouts, which “enhanced the sense of urgency,” the panel said.
In addition, the agencies that responded did not have an agreement in place to guide how they would act and communicate in a situation involving multiple departments.
Like many situations where law enforcement officials are called, the Machiasport incident involved a person who was having a mental health crisis. The common theme in too many of these incidents is that law enforcement officers are asked to handle issues — substance use disorder, mental health crises, domestic violence — that might be better handled with professionals trained in these areas. But, far too many agencies, both government and private, have seen their funding pared back, leaving law enforcement as the frontline response.
Although some of the responding officers were familiar with Jackson and knew that he lived with mental illness, the panel was unable to determine whether law enforcement officers used information to inform how they intervened.
Based on these findings, the review panel offered several recommendations:
Rural police departments, which depend on each other for support, should regularly discuss how they would establish “command and control in critical incidents,” including how they would act in situations involving someone in a mental health crisis.
When police are dealing with someone on probation, as Jackson was, they should notify the probation officer immediately, so he or she can help strategize how to resolve the conflict safely.
These findings and recommendations are helpful, but only if they are shared broadly with Maine’s law enforcement community. It is unclear if and how that will happen.
A key question is “how we get from this report to accountability,” Rep. Jeff Evangelos, I-Friendship, told the Bangor Daily News. He is the sponsor of the bill that created the review panel.
Evangelos spoke of an “accountability tidal wave” that is coming in Maine with numerous bills introduced this legislative session focusing on law enforcement and criminal justice reform.
Evangelos has also asked Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey to reconsider his department’s conclusion in light of the review panel’s report on deficiencies in the handling of the Jackson incident.
This is a fair, but difficult question.
As we’ve written before, the intent of after-the-fact reviews is not to second guess police officers, who are on the forefront of the opioid and mental health crises that plague Maine and the nation. Rather, the intent should be to seek ways to defuse dangerous situations before they become violent or deadly.
The Deadly Force Review Panel’s first report offers a specific way to do just that — to look forward with changes in policies and practices aimed at avoiding situations like the Machiasport standoff.
The report should be required reading for every law enforcement agency in the state.
