CAMDEN, Maine — Members of the Maine State Police tactical team outfitted in camouflage gear and weapons were highly visible during the lengthy standoff Monday night at the Rite Aid Pharmacy, but a team of negotiators working out of a van and out of sight also played a key role.
The four state police negotiators parked in the lot of Serendipity Fine Consignment, across Route 1 from the pharmacy, were in talks with suspect Robert Beerman throughout the night, according to Maine Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.
The negotiators would call the pharmacy’s landline phone, they would talk with Beerman for a while and then he would hang up, McCausland said. The officers would wait a while and call again.
“It’s quiet work, behind the scenes,” McCausland said, but is crucial during standoffs, particularly when a hostage is involved.
The incident began at about 7:30 p.m. Monday when Beerman walked into the pharmacy with a sawed-off shotgun and ordered everybody out except a pharmacist.
McCausland said it was not clear what Beerman’s motive was that night but that the suspect told the negotiators he was holding the pharmacist hostage so that he could get the drugs he wanted.
Beerman consumed a lot of drugs during the night, the public safety spokesman said, but the specific types were not immediately known.
“He kept saying he was not going to harm her,” McCausland said of Beerman’s conversation with negotiators.
The back and forth between the negotiators and Beerman eventually led to the safe release of the pharmacist at about 11 p.m. Monday, McCausland said.
Afterward, the negotiators continued to call and have talks with Beerman, who remained holed up inside the pharmacy, but at some point, he stopped answering the phone.
Camden Police Chief Randy Gagne said police obtained an arrest warrant signed by attorney Stephen Hanscom of Camden, who is also a justice of the peace. Armed with the arrest warrant, police announced over a loudspeaker to Beerman that he was under arrest and ordered him to come out of the pharmacy. When there was no response, the tactical team used an armored vehicle with a battering ram to knock down the front door at about 2:30 a.m. State police officers then went inside at about 3 a.m. where they found Beerman in an employee break room in the back of the store, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Maine medical examiner’s office said Wednesday that Beerman died of a gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a suicide.
McCausland praised the effort of multiple law enforcement departments involved in Monday night’s nearly eight-hour standoff.
In addition to members of the state police and Camden Police Department, there were officers present from the Rockland Police Department including Chief Bruce Boucher, Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies including Chief Deputy Tim Carroll, an FBI agent and a member of the state fire marshal’s office.
Gagne said that the investigation into the incident continues with investigators looking into, among other things, where Beerman obtained the sawed-off shotgun that he used that night.
Beerman had a felony conviction for domestic violence assault in 2011 and was prohibited by law from having a firearm.
The Rite Aid pharmacy reopened on Wednesday morning after having been closed Wednesday.
Ashley Flower, senior public relations manager for Rite Aid, said Wednesday that all associates had been provided counseling services. She did not say if the pharmacist held hostage, who has not been identified, was back to work.
In regard to what can be done to prevent future robberies, Camden police chief Gagne said he did not have an answer.
“If I could come up with a solution, I’d be a millionaire,” he said.
He said that there is clearly a worsening problem of drug dependency and that more people are willing to do anything to get drugs. This is the fifth time that the Rite Aid in Camden has been targeted in a robbery for drugs since 2011, the chief said. The people arrested have been given prison terms ranging from 18 months to four years.
This was the second pharmacy robbery in the past week in the midcoast area. Last week, the Kennebec Pharmacy and Home Care in neighboring Rockport was robbed by a man wearing a plastic Hannaford grocery bag over his head. Donald R. Keating Jr., 55, of Owls Head was arrested and is charged with robbery in connection with the Sept. 9 incident.