Maine State Police use robot with bomb to blow up house to end standoff, nobody cares

This happened in Dixmont, Maine a couple months ago. It was a 61 year old guy having an mental health issue. He shot at police from his house when they drove an armored vehicle into it.

I guess I missed this when it happened at the end of June because it wasn’t widely reported that the police blew up the house with a bomb robot. The police wanted to put the explosives though a window, but the guy shot and disabled the robot before they could.

Michael Grendell, 61, barricaded himself in his house on Thursday, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for Maine State Police, and shot randomly from his house regularly during the standoff. He emerged with a baseball bat Friday morning after the State Police Bomb Team used an explosive to draw him out of his residence, dropped the bat and picked up a firearm, said Col. John Cote, chief of the state police. At that point, Grendell was shot.

It is interesting to note that a NH state police tactical team was on their way to Dixmont when the house was blown up. I can’t believe they needed the man power, and the state of Maine doesn’t pay NH state troopers, so my guess is they wanted to be there for the robot bomb, for training purposes. Dixmont isn’t a border town. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive from Berlin, NH.

A New Hampshire State Police tactical team was on the way to assist but was called off before arriving in Dixmont, McCausland said. The standoff ended shortly before 10 a.m. Friday.

The police try to say they were using the bomb as a breaching charge to get a better view of Grendell, but the trooper who deployed the bomb robot, Christopher Harriman, was placed on leave following the use of deadly force. You don’t get put on administrative leave for deploying a breaching charge. Also, why was the bomb squad even there?

Three state police officers – Sgt. Christopher Harriman, Trooper Caleb McGary and Trooper Andrew Hardy – are on paid administrative leave, following the protocol for officers involved in using deadly force. Chris heads up the bomb squad in Maine.
https://www.maine.gov/dps/msp/special_units/bombs_unit.html

This is the first time police in Maine have used an explosive in this way.

https://bangordailynews.com/2018/08/28/mainefocus/the-aftermath-of-maine-police-exploding-a-mans-house-with-a-bomb-robot/

The police say they used the bomb to try to get a better view of Grendell, but that is a lie. They were trying to kill him.

Around 8:20 a.m., police on scene learned that the bomb team would use a different tactic: an explosive delivered by a robot. The goal would be to bring down a wall, so police could see where Grendell was inside his home, wrote Paul Casey, an assistant team leader.

It fell to the town to clean up the mess. On July 11, a group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors helped rent a dumpster, and a number of local residents and family members pitched in to clear the debris. The town is now asking the state police to cover the $2,000 in costs, said David Bright, Dixmont’s first selectman.

“It was quickly becoming attractive to vermin as well as to onlookers, curious children, and potential looters,” the select board said in a letter sent to Maine State Police on Aug. 13.

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They all highly get off on this. More technologies are coming their way every day.

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I was wondering how police would have authority to work in another state.

There is a New England state police compact.

http://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/25/title25ch198sec0.html

Each of the New England states has a similar law.