The mother of a man murdered in December 2012 by a Biddeford landlord in a dispute over parking has sued local police, alleging that her son would be alive today if they had handled a call before the shooting differently.
James Pak, 79, is serving two life sentences at the Maine State Prison in Warren for killing Derrick Thompson, 19, and his girlfriend Alivia Welch, 18.
Pak also wounded Thompson’s mother, Susan Johnson of Biddeford, and is serving a 30-year sentence for that crime.
Johnson’s attorney, Kristine Hanly of Portland, filed the complaint Wednesday in U.S. District Court on behalf of Susan Johnson and her minor son identified only by his initials. Johnson is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.
The defendants in the case include Biddeford police officers Edward Dexter, Jacob Wolterbeck who allegedly witnessed Pak making threats against the people he shot a few minutes later.
“James Pak told [one of the officers] that he had a gun and if the officer didn’t do something about the parking ‘there is going to be a bloody mess’ and that ‘they would see it in the news,’” the complaint said.
Neither Dexter nor Wolterbeck searched Pak’s apartment for weapons nor did they arrest the landlord for the threats he made, the complaint said.
Johnson claims that her minor son was in the bedroom when his mother and brother were shot but heard the shots and the victims screaming.
She claimed that officers traumatized the boy when they carried him over Thompson’s body to remove him from the home. She also claims that police took him to the home of a stranger and failed to tell his father where the boy was located for a time.
The complaint said the officers’ actions the day of the shootings “showed a deliberate, malicious, reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to, the rights of the plaintiffs.”
Others sued include the Town of Biddeford, the Biddeford Police Department, Biddeford Police Chief Roger Beapure, the Maine Department of Public Safety and its commissioner, John Morris. The complaint claims that Beapure and Morris did not properly supervise and train the officers.
Biddeford Town Manager James Bennett declined Wednesday afternoon to comment on the lawsuit because the town has not yet been served with the complaint.