A Dixmont man whom police shot in June 2018 after blowing up his house with a robot bomb to end a standoff has settled his lawsuit against the state for $400,000 but has not spent the money to rebuild on his property.
Michael Grendell, 65, sued 18 members of the Maine State Police and one member of the state attorney general’s office in U.S. District Court in Bangor in September 2019.
His attorneys had sought $120 million in damages, but Maine law caps the amount a plaintiff may be awarded in a lawsuit against a “governmental entity” and/or its employees at $400,000. Grendell also sought through his lawsuit to bar from the Maine State Police from ever bombing or shooting another citizen again.
The lawsuit was settled in November 2020, according to court documents.
Grendell was shot in the face and torso following a 20-hour police standoff that ended the morning of June 29, 2018, with the explosion of his Fox Lane house. He spent two months in the hospital afterward, used a feeding tube, and suffered hearing loss and cognitive damage, according to the lawsuit.
Grendell was in the midst of a mental health crisis on June 28, 2018, when a neighbor called police to report that Grendell had shot at him the previous day. The neighbor told police he waited to notify them because he was worried Grendell was at risk of being shot by police.
When the first officers arrived at the scene, they used a PA system to call Grendell out of his house, according to the lawsuit. He exited wearing only his underwear, muttered something about the officers not being “the real police” and went back inside. Later, Grendell stepped out of a door holding a handgun and a dog by its leash, with a Civil War replica rifle strapped on his shoulder.
Grendell activated his truck’s alarm a couple times during the standoff and, at one point, fired a gun inside his house after police used a pole arm attached to an armored vehicle to break a window, according to the lawsuit.
Col. John Cote, chief of the Maine State Police, said that officers shot Grendell after the 20-hour standoff when they drew him out of the house by detonating an explosive and Grendell continued walking toward them with a firearm. It was the first time police in Maine detonated explosives using a robot to end a standoff.
N. Laurence Willey, Grendell’s attorney for the lawsuit, did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.
The Maine attorney general’s office confirmed the amount of the settlement but did not comment on the case.
Grendell pleaded no contest in October 2018 to one count each of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, both Class C crimes. In exchange for his pleas, Penobscot County Deputy District Attorney Marianne Lynch dismissed one count of attempted murder, a Class A crime.
No contest pleas result in convictions.
Grendell was sentenced to three years in prison with all but time served suspended and four years of probation. His probation is scheduled to end in October, according to the Maine Department of Corrections.
At the time of his sentencing, Grendell was living independently in an apartment in Greater Bangor. He said then that he planned to rebuild on the property.
After paying his attorneys’ fees and costs, Grendell would have received about $250,000.
It fell to the town of Dixmont and neighbors to clean up the debris from Grendell’s destroyed home as his homeowner’s insurance refused to pay the claim.
The town of Dixmont was reimbursed $2,000 in early 2019 for expenses related to the cleanup, according to First Selectman David Bright. The town disbursed some of that money to residents who helped haul away debris from the explosion.