WINDHAM – Police said they defused a potentially volatile situation last week involving a Windham man who had violated a protection-from-abuse order.

At 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 15, police received a call from a resident complaining that her estranged husband had violated terms of a judge’s protection order by having direct contact with her.

According to Lt. David DeGruchy, the man, Stephen Weeks, 46, of 772 Gray Road, was allowed to pick up and drop off his children at his wife’s home but was not to have direct or indirect contact with her. However, DeGruchy said, Weeks violated the terms of the protection order by entering into a “verbal altercation” with his wife Thursday afternoon.

The wife reported the incident to police, who then tracked Weeks to his Route 202 residence, where he refused to answer when police knocked on the door or made phone calls to the home, DeGruchy said.

Faced with a potential standoff, Detective Paul Cox applied for a search warrant, DeGruchy said, while three patrol officers monitored Weeks’ home from a distance. Weeks exited the home, got into his vehicle and drove toward Gray on Route 202 but was quickly stopped and arrested by the officers.

DeGruchy said police used extra caution, including bringing in a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office emergency services team, for what he described as a “high-risk arrest” due to extenuating circumstances. Those circumstances involved threats Weeks had made after his original domestic violence charge in the summer, DeGruchy said.

“His guns were taken away from him at the end of August of this year, and when he turned over his guns he said that he could easily go get more guns and ammunition so it’s really stupid to take them,” DeGruchy said. “During this altercation on Thursday afternoon he said words to the effect that if he went to the house or if we tried to arrest him for violating the protection order, it was going to take a SWAT team to get him out.

“So, OK, we put all this together … he refused to communicate with us, and we developed information that there was a man living with him that was accused of shooting and killing a man in Portland back in 2008. So that adds another dimension to it.”

DeGruchy said police received reports that Weeks was intoxicated as well, “and when people are intoxicated they don’t always exercise good judgment,” DeGruchy said.

Weeks was arrested without incident, charged with violating a protection from abuse order and taken to Cumberland County Jail where he posted $500 cash bail Friday, Nov. 15. He faces a Jan. 17 court hearing on the violation.

While a resulting search of Weeks’ home found no guns, DeGruchy said, the case is significant for two reasons: It highlights the ineptitude of the judge’s original protection-from-abuse order that allowed Weeks some access to his wife’s home; and it also shows that Windham police were able to halt what DeGruchy said could have become an even worse case of domestic abuse.

“You look at [instances of domestic abuse] and all the things that happen around Maine and this is how they start,” DeGruchy said. “This could have escalated into a tragedy, but our intent was to make the arrest and avert a bad situation. It also demonstrated when a judge issues a protection-of-abuse order and there is a minimal amount of contact allowed, that can trigger an event like this, which in this case it did.”

Stephen Weeks