Warning: The video below depicts violence and foul language.
Video of a fatal police shooting at a Newport campground last Friday shows a man pointing a handgun at police moments before a Penobscot County deputy sheriff shot and killed him.
The abbreviated video, released late Wednesday by the Maine Attorney General’s office in response to a public records request from the Bangor Daily News, also shows the man doubting that the police who had shown up at the Sebasticook Lake Campground in Newport were real officers. The man also says in the video that there is an active shooter on the property.
The attorney general’s office released the video, recorded by a witness, at the BDN’s request under a law passed last year that gives the office the discretion to make recordings of police shootings public.
The recording sheds more light on what happened late last week when 35-year-old Stephen Bossom was shot and killed at the Newport campground.
“We are waiting for the actual cops to arrive,” Bossom said to the officers shortly before he raised a handgun and pointed it at two officers.
Before raising his gun, Bossom questions why more officers haven’t responded to the scene for an active shooter.
“You want to shoot me, shoot me,” Bossom said as he raised the gun.
The 45-second video, which was recorded from behind Bossom and a motorhome, does not show the officers or a bullet striking Bossom.
The man who recorded the incident and apparently turned it over to police described Bossom in the video as being in a “standoff” with two police officers who had guns drawn on him.
Bossom was shot and killed by Deputy Kenneth York, the first officer to arrive at the campground, the Newport police and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Police were responding to a 911 call about a social media post stating there was a person with a weapon at the campground, the agencies said.
The campground’s owners, Sharon Sheehan and Dan Wilbur, said Saturday that Bossom did not believe the officers who arrived were “real” police. Sheehan said that Bossom believed a threat had been made against the campground and he was protecting it and the people staying there when he informed Sheehan of the apparent post and urged her to call 911.
Bossom and his wife had been working at the campground part-time in exchange for a free campsite, where they had parked their refurbished Airstream trailer, according to Sheehan. It’s a common arrangement at campgrounds throughout the country, she said.