LUDLOW, Maine — A Ludlow man is dead after a state police-involved shooting Sunday afternoon, according to police.
State troopers had gone to the home of Alan Gillotti Sr., 52, on Smyrna Townline Road Sunday to investigate an armed home invasion that occurred in Bridgewater earlier that day, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said in a statement released late Sunday evening.
Sgt. Joshua Haines responded and was outside Gillotti’s house when he shot Gillotti.
“As is standard with all police-involved shootings, the Maine attorney general’s office is investigating and the trooper has been placed on administrative leave with pay,” McCausland said.
McCausland could not be reached Monday, and no further information about the home invasion or the shooting was released.
According to records filed in Houlton District Court, Gillotti lived in Houlton for a time and was charged with assault in 1999. No further information about that assault was available Monday.
The records also show he was married for six years before divorcing in 2003 and moving to Ludlow. His ex-wife was granted sole parental rights for two children.
Gillotti pleaded not guilty in September 2012 to a federal charge of possession of an unregistered short-barrel shotgun. He was charged with the crime after he called 911 on April 25, 2012, to report he accidentally shot himself in the foot with a .410-gauge shotgun. After Gillotti reported the shooting, state police troopers conducted a search of his home and also found a short-barrel 20-gauge shotgun hidden under a mattress.
Under federal law, it is illegal to possess a firearm with a barrel length of less than 18 inches and an overall length of less than 26 inches, unless the firearm is registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
While awaiting trial on that charge, Gillotti was arrested in November 2012, after he removed his electronic monitoring device in violation of bail conditions. While in federal court in Bangor to answer to the charge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk revoked Gillotti’s bail and ordered he undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The results of that evaluation are not public.
Then, in May 2013, the gun charge against Gillotti was dropped by federal prosecutors after the courts ruled the search of his home was improper, thus suppressing the evidence — the gun found under the mattress.
The Smyrna Townline Road is a rural dirt road in the community of Ludlow, and many of the homes are set far back from the the road and posted as private property. Police did not say exactly where on the road Gillotti lived, and there was nothing evident Monday to indicate which house was his. Several homeowners who live on the road said they did not want to speak to a reporter Monday afternoon.
Sgt. Haines is a 14-year veteran of the state police who served as a detective in the Major Crimes Unit for eight years in northern Maine before being promoted in September 2012.
The promotion to sergeant had him overseeing troopers in Troop F in Houlton.