PORTLAND, Maine — The widow of a Windham man shot in April by a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office deputy is considering a $2 million lawsuit against police, her attorney said Tuesday.
Vicki McKenney, both as herself and as the representative of her late husband’s estate, is named as the complainant in a notice of claim filed by attorney Daniel Lilley against the sheriff’s office, Deputy Nicholas Mangino and the Windham Police Department.
A notice of claim is typically a precursor to a lawsuit.
McKenney’s husband, 66-year-old Stephen McKenney, was shot dead by Mangino on April 12, 2014, while approaching law enforcement officers with a handgun during a morning standoff at his Windham home.
Vicki McKenney had called 911 earlier that morning and told dispatchers her husband was suicidal. But Lilley said Tuesday that McKenney was seeking help for her distraught husband, not the shooting that ultimately occurred.
“Mr. McKenney was at his own house, on his own property with his own gun by his side. He wasn’t doing anything threatening,” Lilley said. “This was someone who was a good citizen, a good husband and a good father. He never had any criminal record. He was just having a troubling day.”
The Maine attorney general’s office determined that the shooting was justified, announcing in late August that “at the time Deputy Mangino shot Mr. McKenney, [he] reasonably believed that unlawful deadly force was imminently threatened against him and other persons within range of the weapon brandished by Mr. McKenney.”
According to the attorney general’s office, Stephen McKenney had ignored several commands by Mangino to drop his gun and was approaching the deputy’s cruiser with a cocked and loaded .357 Magnum when Mangino fatally shot him in the head with a carbine rifle.
Mangino was positioned behind the engine block of his vehicle, about 69 feet away from McKenney when the shooting took place, and a civilian “ride-along” was ducked down in the cruiser.
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday afternoon it will hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Portland to address the potential lawsuit.
Lilley suggested the findings of the attorney general, which is required to investigate all police-involved shootings, do not sway him or his client.
“Police officers have so many immunities,” Lilley said. “[The attorney general’s office] found over the last 20 years that [police] have never been at fault in the shooting of anybody, which we find hard to believe.”
Thus far, all police shootings in Maine since 1995 have been determined by the attorney general’s office to be justified. There were 96 shootings involving police officers in Maine between 1995 and 2013 investigated by the attorney general’s office, 46 of which were fatal.
Lilley questioned whether Mangino or other deputies or Windham police officers who responded to the scene had adequate crisis training.
He said Vicki McKenney wants more answers about what took place the morning her husband died, and the discovery process that accompanies a lawsuit will provide Lilley with a legal means to investigate the incident outside of the attorney general’s office report.
Lilley said his client is seeking $2 million in damages.
“It’s not what he’s worth. He’s priceless to her, of course,” Lilley said. “The statute requires you to give a fair estimate of damages. That’s a very, very tricky area. She lost her husband and was there to see the horror go down.”
