“ ‘Troubled’ by Maine Capitol Police chief’s social media posts, Mills calls for review,” so reads the Jan. 15 headline on the Press Herald’s website. I hope that, in fact, our governor, Janet Mills, was more than just “troubled” by the revelation that Chief Russell Gauvin embraced and promoted the delusionally seditious and public health-corrosive behaviors so blatantly manifest by those who defiled our U.S. Capitol and menaced our lawmakers.

The stain of such attitudes and predilections as Gauvin embraced and promulgated in his posts cannot be laundered clean by his post-revelatory apology, for they are deeply rooted. His most appropriate act of contrition would be to acknowledge and accept that the core faults disclosed by these posts pose major impediments to restoring and sustaining the full confidence of the governor, his fellow officers and the greater portion of Maine’s body politic who censure such predilections. He should resign.

Nicholas Bartenhagen
Kennebunk

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