MIDWEEK REPORT: SWH still mulling chief's request for statewide arrest powers
SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Nov. 29, 2023 - The Portland Press Herald described it as “a sprawling, frantic manhunt involving 200 police officers, sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, as well as agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service.”
It took four days “and locked the state down,” Jim Willis said.
The former chief of police in Bar Harbor and Mount Desert recalled some of his officers wanting to join the hunt in Central Maine.
The search for John D. Williams was a haunting precursor to the manhunt in Lewiston in October, which prompted Southwest Harbor Police Chief John Hall two weeks ago to ask the select board for approval for statewide arrest powers for his officers. (Williams is serving a life sentence for the murder of police officer Eugene Cole.)
Hall denied one SWH officer’s request to join the Lewiston hunt. Chief David Kerns in Bar Harbor denied similar requests from three officers.
In June 2018, Willis faced the same dilemma, when asked by officers who wanted to join the search for Williams.
“I was like, I don't know how we get authority over there,” Willis said.
Willis remembered talking to Brian McMaster, then the chief of investigations for the attorney general to question whether the statewide arrest authority was appropriate.
“We kind of decided at the time it wasn't.”
“The way I always looked at it was let's say an officer in Bar Harbor is going to go investigate a theft and the suspect lives in Bangor, and you want him to be able to go do his work as a policeman without having to task the Bangor police department to do it for him.
“So statewide arrest authority will allow him to go do that kind of work for that kind of purpose.
“But I never used it because I just didn't think we needed it.
“You have to be really careful if if you're going to go into another community and execute a search warrant. They should know you're coming and they should be a part of what you're doing.
“All kinds of bad things can happen if you don't deconflict those things and so I just decided that if we're gonna go to Bangor and tell Bangor we're coming they're gonna go with us anyway. So why would I use statewide authority? I just didn't feel a need for it.”
Willis added,
On the question of liability, “I don't know that we've ever really gotten a good clear answer when there's a major incident like Lewiston,” said Willis.
“The perils are what if, God forbid, that somebody gets into a shooting in another community where the authority isn't so clear?
“Who gets sued? You just worry about all those things.”
Willis’s retired in August to work as a consultant for Dirigo Safety LLC, which Hall said was assisting police departments who wanted to be credited with statewide powers.
But Willis said his focus is strictly on highway safety. He is advising five towns on how to improve their processes for writing traffic tickets and other tasks. He is not engaged in helping obtain credit for statewide powers.
Hall certainly left that impression when he dropped Willis’s name Tuesday night at the select board meeting. It was another example of the incomplete story Hall keeps weaving to lobby for his requests.
Hall was asked at a meeting earlier this month how many towns in Hancock County allowed statewide authority for their officers. He said he hadn’t bother to find out.
Tuesday, he reported that Ellsworth was the only one.
But that did not deter Hall from continuing his quest.
Select member Chapin McFarland, who is a fire fighter in Mount Desert, said he would like a written policy from Hall before deciding.
Hall said he didn’t want to “waste my time,” but said he was willing to draft something.
Member Luke Damon said,
“I personally don't want to waste your time to do that and then for me to vote no anyway. I just wanted to voice my concerns,” Damon said, to determine why “our small department wants to adopt this policy.”
“It sounds good. It's probably very complicated. A lot of things are.
“I'm just concerned why there's no more buy-in in our region, but they're bought in with the deputation policy seems to be more common. That's just me standing back as an outsider looking at the situation. And just wondering, why isn't everybody embrace this?”
Damon was referring to the common practice of area officers being deputized by the county sheriff’s department. That mechanism was used by Bar Harbor and Mount Desert when they merged in 2013 to enable them to cross jurisdictions easily.
But an incident at MDI High School when a student threatened the principal last year resulted in a more clarifying moment when multiple departments and the park police responded, including officers from Ellsworth.
“Everybody came down and I don't know what kind of authority anybody had. So we talked about it afterwards,” Willis said.
“And so I drafted a mutual aid agreement that every agency in Hancock County signed on to. It's a very formal agreement that we can all help each other whenever we need to, and the elected officials all signed off on it.”
Willis said these agreements are the most effective method for cooperation and that the sheriff ‘s deputizing is another layer of protection.
Toward the end of his comments Tuesday night, Hall appeared to be taking an indirect swipe at other departments and his predecessors.
“What I am trying to do is what is best for this department. There are a lot of things that this department was doing that was done because it's the old way or it's the way everybody's been doing it. I’m trying to change that because it's not the best way.”
Jim Willis was one of the most respected police officers in Maine, known for his low-key demeaner, his practical approach to law enforcement and a stellar record, including the highest decoration for a police officer in Maine for apprehending a child molester after a gun fight in Orland in 1999. That person is still in prison.
No member responded to Chair Carolyn Ball’s call for a motion. She was the only one to voice support.