Tuesday, May 21, 2013
By Dennis Hoey dhoey@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
SOUTH PORTLAND — One of the main roads used by motorists to reach the Maine Mall shopping center in South Portland had to be shut down for almost two hours Thursday after a man, who had doused himself with gasoline and was reportedly armed with a knife, threatened to set himself on fire.
Westbrook Street, which is one of the main roads used by drivers to reach the Maine Mall shopping center in South Portland, had to be shut down for almost two hours tonight after a man, who had doused himself with gasoline, threatened to set himself on fire.
Photo by Chad Gilley
Westbrook Street, which is one of the main roads used by drivers to reach the Maine Mall shopping center in South Portland, had to be shut down for almost two hours tonight after a man, who had doused himself with gasoline, threatened to set himself on fire.
Photo by Chad Gilley
The situation escalated after the man ran across the multi-lane road from the Redbank neighborhood to a dam at Clark's Pond.
Police said the man then threatened to kill himself by jumping off the dam, which is a few feet from Westbrook Street -- a major connector road for travelers on Interstate 295 trying to reach the Maine Mall from Portland.
Sgt. John Sutton of the South Portland Police Department said a crisis counselor was able to establish a rapport with the suicidal man, eventually convincing him to surrender to police.
The man, whose name is not being released, was transported to Maine Medical Center in Portland for evaluation.
Westbrook Street, from Western Avenue to Broadway, had to be shut down from 4:15 to 6 p.m. because motorists were either "rubber necking" or honking their horns at drivers who paused to view the crisis, Sutton said.
"The drivers were creating a pretty big distraction and it was only making the situation more difficult," Sutton said.
The standoff began around 3:45 p.m. when Redbank residents notified police that a man -- believed to be in his late 20s -- had doused himself with gasoline and was threatening to set himself on fire with a cigarette lighter.
When police arrived, the man ran across Westbrook Street, passing near Wild Willy's Burgers and an Irving gas station before climbing on top of the dam's retaining wall.
Sutton said the police presence seemed to agitate the man, so they called in a crisis counselor from Cumberland County Crisis Response.
The counselor spoke with the man for almost an hour before the man agreed to surrender.
Maine State Police troopers, as well as officers from Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and Portland, helped manage traffic during the standoff. State police also shut down I-295's Exit 3 near Pape Chevrolet.
After the incident ended, Sutton said he decided to take a drive around the Maine Mall area.
"It was pretty much a parking lot out there," Sutton said.
The man will not be charged, police said.
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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