A Bangor Police officer was justified in shooting at a woman who was brandishing a pair of knives at two officers in a June 2023 incident, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) announced Monday.
The investigation conducted by the Maine Attorney General’s Office concluded this week by finding the use of deadly force by Bangor Police Officer Bobbylee Gillespie, which resulted in no injury to the woman in question, was justified due to a reasonable belief of serious bodily injury or death to herself or to the other officer on the scene.
According to Attorney General Frey, shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday, June 25, 2023, Bangor Police received a report from a caller that 39-year-old Linda Coburn of Bangor had assaulted the caller at a residence they shared.
Bangor Police Officers Gillespie and Michaela Sprague responded to the residence, which was located at a trailer park on Finson Road in Bangor, Frey wrote in his report on the incident.
While traveling to the trailer park, dispatch Officer Gillespie that the situation was escalating, that Coburn was sharpening a large knife, and had followed her 17-year-old daughter outside of the residence with the knife.
Upon arrival at the scene, Frey said, Officer Gillespie observed Coburn outside the residence with a knife in her hand, and repeatedly ordered her to drop the knife.
Officer Sprague arrived at the residence less than a minute after Gillespie, and observed knives in each of Coburn’s hands.
Coburn, refusing to drop the knives, repeatedly told the officers to shoot her, and that she was not going to jail, while slicing at her wrists and arms, Frey wrote.
Body camera footage of the incident from Officers Gillespie and Sprague reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office reportedly show Coburn raising a knife in her right hand and pointing it at the 911 caller, with another knife in her left hand, while yelling that she was not going back to jail for him.
Gillespie described to the Attorney General’s Office that based on Coburn’s failure to drop the knife, and her erratic and unpredictable behavior, she believed that Coburn was going to stab the 911 caller or advance towards the officers, and therefore fired two shots at Coburn.
When Coburn stepped again toward the 911 caller, Gillespie fired another shot. None of the bullets hit Coburn.
According to Frey, Coburn was ordered by the officers to drop the knife more than 20 times, and when Maine State Police and Bangor Police processed the scene, two large kitchen knives were found in the middle of the road.
“When Officer Gillespie shot at Ms. Coburn, she could have reasonably believed that Ms. Coburn was about to cause serious bodily injury or death to the 911 caller or herself or Officer Sprague,” Frey wrote.
“Ms. Coburn was screaming and acting unpredictably and erratically,” he added. “All the facts and circumstances point to the conclusion that Officer Gillespie was acting in defense of the 911 caller, herself, and Officer Sprague when she fired her weapon at Ms. Coburn.”
In Maine, all cases in which law enforcement use deadly force are reviewed by the Maine Attorney General’s Office.
Perhaps Bangor LEOs would benefit from a bit more range time.
Did anyone notice that the officers were women? I have to wonder if men would handled it differently