The retired Marine who was fatally shot by police outside the Togus Veterans Affairs Medical Center on July 8 had repeatedly vowed to kill the hospital’s medical director, the Maine Attorney General’s Office said in a report released Tuesday.

“The children of the Director of the VA Togus will grow up fatherless … just as my daughter will due to this man’s utter incompetence,” James F. Popkowski, 37, wrote to his mother on July 5. “I know where he lives. … I know his schedule. … I know what he drives. … I have pics of his entire family. … He is a dead man walking.”

Three days later, Popkowski fired shots outside the hospital buildings and was killed by a gunshot to the neck fired by a Togus police officer.

The Attorney General’s Office determined that the shooting was justified. “It was reasonable for (police) to believe that deadly force was imminently threatened against them,” the report concludes.

The report paints a picture of a veteran who was outraged by his treatment in the federal veterans’ health care system.

Popkowski’s complaints in the report echo those in a report released last week by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which found failures in the treatment that Popkowski received at Togus and its off-site clinics.

Popkowski was a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps when a rare form of leukemia cut his service short in 2003. He received an honorable discharge and later was diagnosed with graft-versus-host disease from a stem-cell transplant he received as part of the cancer treatment.

Popkowski first visited Togus in December 2005, after cancer treatment elsewhere.

“2009, Mr. Popkowski was expressing significant dismay with the quality of the medical treatment he was receiving from the VA hospital,” according to the attorney general’s report.

Much of his anger was directed at Medical Center Director Brian Stiller, according to the report.

Popkowski’s name became known to police on Dec. 11, 2009, when an employee at the Lincoln VA outpatient clinic told Togus police that he had called and threatened “to load guns into his truck, drive to the Togus VA hospital and ‘blow it up’” unless he was allowed to speak with a certain physician’s assistant.

Togus police asked the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department to check on Popkowski at his home near Medway.

“Three days later, the Togus police received a message from the (sheriff) that … in the deputy’s opinion, Mr. Popkowski did not constitute a probable threat,” according to the report.

Popkowski then had to get his care at Togus because of the threats he’d made at the Lincoln clinic.

Displeased with his primary care physician at Togus, he was assigned a new one. He walked out of his first appointment with the new physician’s assistant, in May, alleging the assistant was “not fully aware of (Popkowski’s) medical condition.”

That was the last time he visited Togus as a patient.

On July 5, Popkowski sent his mother messages threatening Stiller. He became more erratic over the ensuing days.

Togus police Officer Thomas Park first encountered Popkowski around 4:30 a.m. on July 8. While on a routine patrol, Park noticed Popkowski sitting on the steps of Building 203.

Park told him not to return until normal business hours.

Popkowski “told the officer that he was upset with the VA because he was not getting his medication,” investigators wrote.

Around 9:20 a.m., two VA employees sitting behind Building 209 heard gunshots coming from the direction of a small pond on the grounds. The women ran inside to inform Togus police.

Residents along Route 17 in Augusta, near a trail head where Popkowski’s truck had been parked, also heard shots.

Park was told to check the area near Popkowski’s truck. There, he saw the stock of a rifle or shotgun in the cab of the truck.

Game warden Sgt. Ronald Dunham and warden Joey Lefebvre, passing on Route 17, saw Park near the truck with his weapon drawn and stopped to assist.

Dunham walked to the area of the trail head, investigators wrote, while Park saw the man he recognized as Popkowski walking toward Dunham.

Popkowski, who was wearing a shoulder holster, had an arm extended, pointing a gun at Dunham, investigators wrote.

Dunham identified himself as a warden and saw Popkowski continue walking with the handgun still pointed at Dunham.

“Sgt. Dunham and Officer Park issued successive commands for Mr. Popkowski to drop the gun,” investigators wrote. “Mr. Popkowski, however, continued to advance on Sgt. Dunham with his handgun pointed directly at Sgt. Dunham.”

Park and Dunham fired simultaneously. One of those bullets hit Popkowski in the neck.

The attorney general’s report does not say whether Popkowski fired any shots at the officers.