FORT KENT, Maine — Members of a New Canada family are asking some serious questions about local law enforcement procedures in the wake of an attempted burglary at their Caribou Road home earlier this month.
Sylvie Nadeau said she was sound asleep when she was awoken just after 2 a.m. Friday, Jan. 10, by the sounds of someone banging on the home’s windows and doors.
By the time she got downstairs, she said, she heard the sound of breaking glass and immediately called her closest neighbor and 911 for help.
Christopher Enno, 34, of Auburn later was arrested at the scene without incident and charged with criminal mischief by a trooper with the Maine State Police. Enno, who told the trooper he was looking for a place to get warm, was taken to the Aroostook County Jail in Houlton and later released on bail.
But Nadeau and her husband, Bruce — who was out of town at the time — became even more upset about the incident when they learned that a Fort Kent police officer had dropped Enno off only an hour earlier at the town line about a mile from their house.
Both said Enno, who had been trying to walk or hitchhike about 45 miles to Caribou, never would have tried to break into their home if police had not dropped him off nearby in the first place.
“It was eight below zero that morning,” homeowner Bruce Nadeau said, looking back. “I wouldn’t even [drop off] someone I didn’t like in weather like that.”
Fort Kent Police Chief Kenneth Michaud last week confirmed that one of his officers had given Enno a ride to the New Canada-Fort Kent town line that Friday morning.
“Mr. Enno was walking south on Market Street [and] when we see someone we ask if they need a ride, where they are going or if they need help,” Michaud said.
Enno told Officer Steve Hoglund that he was walking to Caribou after spending time helping his mother move into an apartment in St. John Plantation, the chief said.
Michaud said Hoglund indicated to him that it appeared Enno had been drinking, but gave no indication he was going to cause that amount of trouble after being dropped off.
“I understand it was winter, but he was going to keep walking anyway,” Michaud said. “The officer gave him a ride to the town line; we have done this in the past [and] my officer did nothing wrong.”
In fact, the chief said an officer had dropped another individual at the Fort Kent-Frenchville town line that same night. He added that such drop-offs occur several times over the course of a year and to his knowledge nothing like this has happened before.
His department, Michaud stressed, is not a taxi service, but he added it is often a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario.
“We will get calls from the emergency room at [Northern Maine Medical Center] that someone was brought in and now needs a ride,” he said. “What are we supposed to say?”
The chief cited instances in which his officers have declined to transport an individual to a town line and soon after that individual was arrested for stealing a car to drive themselves.
“We even got a call from Madawaska one day asking if anyone in Fort Kent was missing a pedal bike,” Michaud said. “Someone had apparently stolen a bike and ridden it to Madawaska.”
For now, according to Town Manager Don Guimond, police no longer will be taking members of the public to any of Fort Kent’s four town lines.
“In my opinion, was the officer using his best judgment?” Guimond said. “There probably should have been more of an effort made to call someone to come and get him.”
Town managers in Frenchville and Wallagrass, which share town lines with Fort Kent, were unaware of the practice.
But New Canada Town Manager Rodney Pelletier said he has heard of similar incidents in the past.
“Yes, it has happened before with someone being dropped off at the town line by police,” he said. “But this is the first time something like this has happened.”
Given what happened at the Nadeau residence, Pelletier said he is very concerned.
“You don’t just drop off your riffraff in another town,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good practice.”
It is, however, a practice not exclusive to Fort Kent.
“I really think it does happen, particularly in rural Maine,” Robert Schwartz, retired South Portland police chief and executive director of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, said this week. “It would be common under certain conditions.”
During times of inclement weather and if an officer is not engaged in other official business, Schwartz said it is understandable he or she would render assistance by giving someone a lift.
But, he agreed in the wake of what happened at the Nadeau home, the practice may need to be examined.
“I think any time something like this does happen you need to take a look and ask if it is ‘best practices,’” Schwartz said. “If things like that do not happen that often, then it is not a real problem.”
Long gone are the days when officers could lock up individuals in the local drunk tank without first charging them, according to Aroostook County Sheriff James Madore. That, he added, can leave local law enforcement officials with few options.
Stressing he was not privy to the details of the New Canada incident, Madore did say that if an individual is not under arrest and there is no reason to believe he or she is a danger to themselves or others and if the police are willing to give them a ride to the town line, “so be it.”
But, it must be done on a case-by-case basis, he said.
“If you are going to give someone a ride [and] you are transferring a problem from one jurisdiction to another, absolutely not,” Madore said. “Bringing your problems to another jurisdiction does not pass the straight-face test.”
“It’s not like the old days when you could lock them up, let them sleep it off and let them out the next morning,” Madore said. “If my officers determine there is not enough to charge someone, we take them home and warn them to stay there or they will be arrested.”
In Fort Kent, Michaud said, his officers since have been instructed to not give rides to any members of the public.
“We are just going to have to let them walk,” the chief said. “It’s sad to say, but we have no place for them to go.”
