Commission: Sheriff had cause to take Lewiston gunman into custody 6 weeks before shootings

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!

It probably only would have prolonged the inevitable.

These cases are almost always easy to see when looked at with the benefit of 20/20 Hindsight.

The Sheriff was 100% correct in his statement: "I was trying to figure out how to skin this cat from a different direction," Skolfield told the commission in January. "I can't make him come out, I can't make him answer the door, I can't make him talk to me. But at the same time I can't go barging into his trailer because he has 4th Amendment issues against search-and-seizure. He hasn't committed a crime." In retrospect, the Sheriff could and probably should have done more, such as accompanying a family member to visit him, but contrary to the dreams of some people, we do still live in a country where individuals still have rights and where legal process is not supposed to be based on third-hand reports about what someone else thinks. "John told me Mike said he thinks Bill might be dangerous" is not supposed to be enough to deprive someone of their liberty or property.

Similarly the report says "Finally, the commission finds that there is a misperception among some law enforcement officers, including Sgt. Skolfield, that they need to have a victim 'press charges' to bring a case to the prosecutor's office," reads the report. "This is simply wrong. It is the prosecutor, acting on behalf of the citizens of Maine, who brings the charges but a prosecutor can only act when those charged with investigating crimes, i.e., law enforcement officers, follow through with their investigations." This statement is legally true, but it ignores the fact that law enforcement needs probable cause. You can't just arrest an individual for "assault" because of third-hand statements, you don't absolutely need the victim to testify, but you do need someone who actually saw the assault take place who is willing to at least make a statement. Again, perhaps the sheriff could have tried harder to fabricate a case, but do we really want a world where law enforcement pressures unwilling witnesses to make statements which may or may not be true? Once law enforcement starts pressuring "witnesses" people will eventually just tell them whatever they want to hear.

It is also hard to take the article itself seriously when it begins with the oxymoron "high-powered assault rifle" which, by definition, cannot exist, and no assault rifle was used in this crime.