After a week of investigating the shooting death of David Anderson in an apartment complex on Gilman Street, Portland police have not said whether they have identified a suspect and aren’t saying whether they are close to making an arrest in the city’s first homicide of 2016.
Police issued a no trespass order Wednesday against the tenant whose apartment Anderson was visiting on March 15, the night he was killed. Shawn McGuinness has been banned from Apartment 305 at 88 Gilman St. and says he has not been allowed to retrieve his belongings.
McGuinness, 52, told the Press Herald on Wednesday that Anderson, who would have turned 37 Thursday, was shot through the door of McGuinness’ apartment at around 11 p.m. after someone first knocked repeatedly and Anderson spoke to that person through the door.
The shooter fired several times, hitting Anderson more than once, McGuinness said.
Police have said another man in the apartment was also shot, but have declined to release that man’s name. He was treated and released from the hospital.
“He kept shooting, and Shycago went by me,” McGuinness said, referring to Anderson by his nickname. “He didn’t even know he was shot. He went to the bathroom and collapsed.”
McGuinness spoke during an interview at his rented room at Motel 6 in Portland.
Police have released two video surveillance images from the night of the shooting showing a light-skinned man dressed in dark clothing, a hood, a red patterned hat and white sneakers. The time stamp on the images indicates they were recorded at 11:06 p.m. and 11:08 p.m. as the man was leaving the building. Police received the 911 call at 11:09 p.m.
Police have acknowledged that they have more surveillance video taken at the building that night but have declined to release it or say what it shows.
Assistant Police Chief Vern Malloch said the department has received tips, but he declined to say how useful that information has been, or whether investigators have identified a suspect in Anderson’s death.
The shooting took place at a third-floor apartment inside 88 Gilman St., a building for low-income people owned by nonprofit group Shalom House, which is headquartered a few doors away.
“Essentially I can tell you that we can’t really tell you anything,” Malloch said. “We are continuing to investigate, and we are very interested in talking with anyone who has information about what led up to the shooting, or who the perpetrator might be.”
Police had told McGuinness and the media that he would be allowed to return to his apartment after they finished collecting evidence. McGuinness said he had been told he could return to the apartment after 2 p.m. Wednesday, but when he got there he was handed a no trespass order instead.
“I’m the victim here. I’m in distress,” McGuinness said as he sat on his hotel bed with paperwork spread out on a table in front of him. He said he had no belongings other than some clothes, a cellphone, glasses and items in his pockets.
“I have nowhere to sleep tomorrow,” he said.
McGuinness, who says he suffered a traumatic brain injury during a boating accident in 1983, said he wasn’t able retrieve his clothes, medicine, medical records or his Maine Electronic Benefits Transfer card so he could buy food.
His paperwork, which he showed to the Portland Press Herald, indicated that Shalom House had filed a court petition Monday for a temporary order to keep McGuinness from the property and that police followed with the no trespass order on Wednesday. A court hearing is scheduled for April 11, when a judge will decide whether to keep the order in effect.
The Shalom House petition to ban McGuinness from the property cites too much traffic in and out of the apartment, and the fact the shooting took place there, among other reasons.
McGuinness said that he had let Anderson and Anderson’s girlfriend, Marissa Corliss, stay at his apartment in the days before the shooting and that he was unaware that they both had pending criminal drug possession charges against them.
“I was doing a favor for him. Nice guy,” he said of Anderson. “Everyone in Portland knew him. He helped everybody.”
Before the shooting, Anderson and the other man who was shot had been at the apartment to watch a basketball game and Corliss and another woman had gone to the store, McGuinness said. He said he had been resting in his bedroom but got up when he heard the knock at the door.
McGuinness said he never saw the shooter. He refused to identify the second man who was shot and said he did not know the name of the second woman.
Malloch declined to say whether police have executed any search warrants in pursuit of the shooting suspect, but said investigators conducted a lengthy search at the crime scene.
“We want to be as thorough as possible, knowing that once we release the scene it’s essentially been contaminated,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, a police evidence technician was seen removing bedding, bundles of clothing, baskets and boxes full of items from the apartment. Wood splinters could be seen in the hallway carpet around the entrance to Apartment 305.
One resident of the building, Joyce McKellar, said she didn’t know McGuinness but saw him in passing. She said a diverse group of people live in the apartments.
“We’ve got families here, we got kids here, elders,” she said.
A woman who answered the door at Shalom House’s administrative headquarters, also on Gilman Street, declined to comment on the order banning McGuinness from the property.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story