BREWER, Maine — A domestic violence incident that spilled out onto South Main Street and possibly involved a firearm put everyone on alert and locked down two area schools until the suspect was caught, law enforcement and school officials said.
Patrick Morrison, 50, of Brewer was charged with domestic violence assault, domestic violence criminal threatening and refusing to submit to arrest, the Brewer Police Department’s Facebook page states. All the charges are misdemeanors, a Penobscot County Jail official said.
“We had an initial report that he was possibly armed,” Brewer Deputy Chief Chris Martin said in an email about the incident that “stemmed from a domestic violence complaint on South Main near Abbott Street.”
Police were called to Morrison’s home at around 7:35 a.m. and Cpl. Thom Tardiff learned that “Patrick Morrison had physically assaulted the victim, had threatened to kill her and himself, and attempted to prevent her from calling the police,” the post states.
Morrison left the home before law enforcement arrived, concealed himself in a wooded area between South Main and Abbott streets and refused repeated orders to turn himself in, the Facebook post states.
Several officers arrived, and “all Brewer officers had their service weapons deployed,” it states.
At one point, “Morrison stood up and began rapidly walking through the woods towards the back of his residence. Sgt. [Fred] Luce, Chief [Jason] Moffitt, Cpl. Tardiff and Officer [Dustin] Martin pursued Morrison with continued commands to surrender. Sgt. Luce observed that nothing was in Morrison’s hands, so Sgt. Luce and Cpl. Tardiff transitioned to Tasers. They deployed their Tasers on Morrison and he was taken into custody in the backyard of his residence without further incident,” the Facebook post states.
Police thought Morrison was armed because a gun the woman owned was not where she stored it. They later found the firearm in a different location within the house.
“It is believed that Morrison had loaded and moved the firearm,” the post states.
Because of the potential threat, “We did request a lockdown of the schools as a precautionary measure until he was arrested. Once he was arrested, the lockdown was lifted,” Martin said.
Brewer Community School and Brewer High School, which are located on Parkway South, were temporarily locked down, Superintendent Cheri Towle said.
“Both BCS and BHS did go into a lockdown for approximately 20 minutes as a precautionary measure due to the Brewer Police Department informing us of a situation in south Brewer,” Towle said. “At no time were our students and staff in any danger. The Brewer School Department practices our lockdown and safety drills regularly, and both buildings did an excellent job following those protocols.”
Parents were notified of the lockdown through the school department’s Onecall system, the superintendent said.
Morrison is scheduled to make his first court appearance at the Penobscot Judicial Center on Friday. He remained in jail in Bangor Thursday afternoon, a jail official said.