A former sergeant with the Southwest Harbor Police Department who was fired last month from his job has filed a grievance against the town over his dismissal, according to the police chief.
The Southwest Harbor Police Department terminated Ryan Blakeney’s employment on Jan. 12. Blakeney filed a grievance with the officers’ police union, New England Police Benevolent Association Local 615, within 10 days of his termination, Chief John Hall said.
The town manager and attorney will meet to address Blakeney’s grievance, Hall said.
Because the grievance is still pending, Hall declined to comment on the nature of the former sergeant’s dismissal.
Blakeney joined the department in August 2023 and was promoted to sergeant in October 2024, according to meeting minutes from the town’s Select Board.
The department fired Blakeney on Jan. 12, the same day he was involved in a vehicle accident in Ellsworth.
Blakeney’s 2025 Ram pick-up truck collided with a 19-year-old’s Subaru in front of Tradewinds Variety on Route 1A, according to a crash report of the incident filed with the state. The teenage driver of the other vehicle told the responding Ellsworth police officer that he didn’t see Blakeney’s pickup truck as it turned into the store’s parking lot, causing him to collide with the driver’s side of the sergeant’s truck, according to the crash report.
No injuries were reported at the scene, but both vehicles sustained damage. Blakeney was not distracted and made no “contributing action” to cause the accident, according to the report.
Hall declined to comment on whether the incident was related to the former sergeant’s dismissal.
In June 2018, Blakeney, at the time an officer with the Skowhegan Police Department, came under fire after he arrested a 20-year-old man who said he was experiencing a seizure at the time of his detainment. Blakeney believed the man was inebriated and arrested him for simple assault. The man’s father filed a complaint against Blakeney, requesting that officers be trained to recognize medical emergencies, according to the Press Herald’s reporting at the time.
At the time, Blakeney was a certified drug recognition expert, though his credentials expired in June 2019 and he has not since recertified, according to his transcript from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.
Blakeney resigned from the Skowhegan Police Department in August 2018, two months after the contested June arrest. He did not provide a reason for his departure in his resignation letter, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Bangor Daily News.
Blakeney, a 2016 Thomas College graduate, has a history of other traffic citations in Maine, including a speeding violation and twice failing to abide by a stop sign, according to state records.
Blakeney hit the back of a woman’s car while driving a Skowhegan police cruiser in September 2016. The woman bumped her lip on her steering wheel and required towing for her stalled car, but otherwise there were no injuries reported, according to the incident’s state crash report.
The crash report for that collision indicated that Blakeney slowed down when he saw the woman’s car slowing in front of him.
“[Blakeney] stated he reached over to the passenger seat to move paperwork that was on the radio and when he looked up [the other car] was stopped in traffic,” the report says. Blakeney told police at the time that “his foot slid off the brake and he struck” the other car.
Blakeney did not respond to inquiries from the Bangor Daily News.
The sergeant’s dismissal is among a number of changes last month at the Southwest Harbor Police Department. Officer James Kamorski resigned and another was approved for a school resource assignment, according to the Bar Harbor Story.
The town’s Select Board decided not to refill the vacancy created by Kamorski’s resignation, in part because 12-hour shifts and overtime wages have ballooned the police’s budget to 36.9% of the town’s total funds, the Bar Harbor Story reported. This leaves the department currently with a staff of four, including Hall, but the town intends to fill the vacant sergeant position.
In 2024, Blakeney’s first full year with the Southwest Harbor Police Department, he earned $170,295.14 before deductions. The following year, once sergeant, 31-year-old Blakeney made $136,682.35, according to the town’s finance department.