Police on the scene at Summit Terrace apartments where a police involved shooting took place Friday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
South Portland police say an officer shot and killed a man after he confronted officers who were responding to a domestic violence shooting early Friday.
Officers were sent to the Summit Terrace apartment complex in South Portland around 4 a.m. The wife of Christapher Dodge, 47, told police that he had fled the complex in his truck. He later returned to the scene and “engaged the officers in an armed confrontation,” South Portland police said.
Officer Anthony Verville shot Dodge, who died at the scene, police said. Verville was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which is standard procedure in all officer-involved shootings.
Dodge was a resident of the apartment complex, South Portland Police Chief Dan Ahern said.
Verville has not been involved in any other officer-involved shootings since he joined the department in 2017, Ahern said. He declined to say if Verville had ever been disciplined.
Ahern referred further questions about the case to the attorney general’s office. A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, citing an ongoing investigation, said she could not answer questions about the shooting, including what the armed confrontation entailed and whether Dodge fired at police.
The attorney general’s office has never found an officer-involved shooting in Maine to be unjustified.
A search for criminal history records for Dodge with the Maine State Bureau of Identification turned up no results.
Police were blocking the entrance to Summit Terrace, a road leading to the Summit Terrace Apartments, around 9 a.m. Friday. Beyond the blockade, yellow crime scene tape surrounded a parking area and part of the complex. Several police vehicles were parked on the road.
A woman who lives in the complex and did not want to give her name said she was awoken by gunshots around 3:45 a.m. “It was pop, pop,” she said. “I thought I was dreaming.”
Police at the scene at Summit Terrace apartments where a police-involved shooting took place early Friday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
The woman said she has lived in the complex for almost three years, and “never had an experience like this.”
“I’m obviously scared,” she said. “Do I need to move?”
Dion Phillips, who lives in the complex but a few buildings from the scene, didn’t hear gunshots Friday morning.
“I’m surprised, because I didn’t hear anything,” he said.
Phillips said he was out walking later when he noticed the large police presence. He said he also saw what appeared to be a body under a sheet in the parking lot.
“I just hope it’s no one we know. It’s kind of mind-blowing,” he said.
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