SOUTH PORTLAND (AP) – A woman who says she was kidnapped last May by a man who was critically injured in a shootout with police is happy he’s off the streets.

Melissa Mizner said Terrel Dubois was getting increasingly “desperate” and that she feared for her life when he failed to appear for his trial last month.

Dubois, 22, and South Portland Police Officer Steven Connors were hit multiple times in a gun battle in which as many as 20 shots were fired Wednesday night.

Connors, who was shot four times, was released from the Maine Medical Center on Thursday. Dubois was in critical condition at same hospital Thursday, under police guard. The hospital declined to provide an update to his condition on Friday.

Dubois failed to appear at a trial last month on charges of kidnapping, terrorizing and criminal threatening. “(He) was getting desperate,” Mizner said, “and I felt that he was going to do something stupid.”

Connors and three Portland police officers went to an apartment where Dubois was staying to arrest him Wednesday night. As officers were let into the apartment by the woman who lives there, Dubois appeared from a back room and started firing, Connors’ lawyer said.

“It’s a classic self-defense and a vicious attack by someone who was being sought to be arrested who already had made up his mind not to go without a violent display of force,” said John Richardson, who represents South Portland and Portland patrol officers.

The state attorney general’s office is investigating the officers’ conduct as it does in all cases in which a police officer uses deadly force. In addition, South Portland and Portland police are conducting internal investigations.

“We want to account for every round fired in the incident,” said South Portland Police Chief Ed Googins.

Richardson said Connors and at least one of the Portland officers returned fire. “To be shot four times and be able to return fire and subdue the person is nothing short of courageous and amazing,” he said.