Maine Police Shootings of Individuals with Mental Illness: Recent Incidents and Concerns (2024)

Family of Hyannis man killed in Maine said he had history of mental illness (Cape Cod Times)

Deputy injured; Multiple agencies on scene of shooting in Fryeburg (YouTube)

Notice the media don’t appear to care at all about the man with mental illness who just got slammed by a police car and is probably in complete shock. He’s now dead but the “deputy was injured.” The “authorities” and the media work together to dehumanize citizens with disabilities. It keeps both of them employed. We here to remind people that we f*cking matter.

‘There was no need for that’

Amy Cook, Ellis’ ex-girlfriend and mother to his two children, said she recently watched a black and white doorbell camera video, which captured a portion of the police chase and Ellis’ vehicle as it hit a snow bank.

Cook, who lives in New Hampshire, provided the WMTW-TV YouTube video to the Times.

“The police say that they yelled at Kenny three times to drop a knife. But all you hear is silence and then eight gunshots,” said Cook.

The police officer opened fire and “emptied the whole clip into Kenny,” she said. “There was no need for that.”

Family of Hyannis man killed in Maine said he had history of mental illness (Cape Cod Times)

*Kenneth Ellis, 52, Hyannis, Massachusetts* (photo courtesy of GoFundMe)

This recent article was a trigger for Lee and I.

We recognized the patterns of the Maine police shooting people with mental illness while brandishing a knife because we have been following their news for decades.

Just from recollection, we thought about the Farmington, Maine police shooting in 2011 of an Army veteran who had a knife.

A problematic police officer in Rumford, Maine shot and injured a suicidal woman with mental illness and a knife in 2014.

And since moving to California, we learned via the Cape Cod Times that another Maine police officer shot and killed a Massachusetts citizen this year with a history of mental illness because he too had a knife.

We had a close call when a stranger on the internet contacted our local Police Department and told them I was suicidal in March 2014 two weeks prior to one of these officer involved shootings. They showed up to our home with guns drawn and forced me into the back of a police vehicle so they could take me to the hospital for an evaluation of which I was quickly released. We were swatted because the police took these folks at face value.

We went into hiding after this incident.

The gun and the knife fight especially with someone with mental illness is not the same… and is not fair. There’s got to be a better way to deal with these mental health incidents.

We moved to California to escape these officer involved shooting patterns in Western Maine because we too have mental health related disabilities. All three incidents occurred in the very rural Oxford and Franklin County. There may be more. We haven’t finished the research yet.