A Howland man underwent surgery Saturday after being shot by a Maine State Police trooper late Friday night, but the hospital said it couldn’t release information on his condition late Saturday.

Dale Saucier, 36, was shot by Trooper Benjamin Campbell during an armed confrontation at Saucier’s mobile home on Water Street in Howland, which is about 10 miles north of Bangor.

Saucier was reported in serious condition Saturday morning at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, but a nursing supervisor there said Saturday night that she couldn’t release information on him because he was unable to give his consent to the release.

Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said the confrontation occurred around midnight Friday after Saucier called police. McCausland declined to say why Saucier called police and a Department of Public Safety statement said Campbell was making a “well-being check” on Saucier following the call.

The statement said the shooting occurred inside Saucier’s trailer and that there were no injuries to Campbell or anyone else. McCausland would not say if other people lived in the trailer with Saucier.

Campbell has been placed on administrative leave with pay while the incident is investigated by the Maine Attorney General’s Office, assisted by state police, which is standard procedure, McCausland said.

Advertisement

This was the fourth shooting by a Maine police officer this year, including the wounding of a man by a state trooper in a standoff in Ellsworth on June 1. Last year nine people were wounded or killed during armed confrontations with police.

A 2012 investigation by the Portland Press Herald found that since 1990, the Attorney General’s Office had reviewed 101 officer-involved shootings, which resulted in 50 deaths through 2012. All of those reviews concluded that the shootings were justified. The standard for concluding that a shooting is justified revolves around whether the officer could reasonably conclude that the officer or another person was threatened.

Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:

bquimby@pressherald.com

Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.