To reach a suicide prevention hotline, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Three Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies acted in self-defense last November when they shot a man during a standoff in Harrison.
That’s the conclusion of investigators with the Maine attorney general’s office, which on Friday released their report in Detective Nathan Therriault, Detective Tyler Monsees and Patrol Deputy Brandon Pelton’s shooting of 57-year-old Arthur Lefebvre of Harrison.
Lefebvre called 911 about 1:16 p.m. on Nov. 13, 2024, but hung up without identifying himself. Dispatchers said that the caller sounded intoxicated and determined the call came from Hawk Ridge Road, according to the report.
Lefebvre again called 911 about 1:32 p.m., and during the call, dispatchers could hear Lefebvre make “concerning statements” toward people heard in the background, investigators wrote.
Deputies went to Hawk Ridge Road to perform a wellness check. While they were there, officers heard what they believed was a gunshot.
Lefebvre was later seen walking around the Hawk Ridge Road home with a firearm and didn’t comply with repeated demands to put it down and come out, according to the report. He yelled at officers and chided them to shoot him.
At one point, about 3:11 p.m., Lefebvre allegedly fired a shot out a window, leading police to end attempts at negotiation, investigators wrote.
He then emerged from the house carrying a handgun and a rifle, later determined to be a BB gun, and started walking toward officers stationed near the woods. He allegedly didn’t comply with repeated orders to drop the weapons and stop.
Therriault, Monsees and Pelton then opened fire, wounding Lefebvre, who was treated for multiple gunshot wounds at the hospital.
During a search of the house, police found two rifles, a pistol, a spilled box of .22-caliber bullets, a spent 9 mm casing on the home’s deck and another casing inside on the second floor.
Lefebvre didn’t live at the home and gained access to it as a caretaker.
When asked later why he fired his gun, Lefebvre told investigators that he wanted to be with his dead fiancee and dog.
Lefebvre has been charged with reckless conduct with a firearm, criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and creating a police standoff. His case is still winding through the court system.
Investigators concluded that Therriault, Monsees and Pelton “reasonably believed” Lefebvre posed a threat to themselves and other officers, because he had fired at least two shots, made homicidal and suicidal threats, and refused repeated commands to drop his weapons as he approached officers in woods.
“All the facts and circumstances point to the conclusion that the three officers believed they were acting in defense of themselves and other officers at the time they used deadly force,” investigators wrote.
