LEWISTON — Family members of a man who committed suicide during a police standoff said Thursday that he never owned a handgun he allegedly used to threaten a neighbor.
Daniel Bussiere, 49, of 163 Holland St. fatally shot himself with a hunting rifle last week after he holed up at his apartment for about 20 hours.
A property manager of that apartment building said Thursday that the neighbor who made the handgun claim entered Bussiere’s apartment after the standoff ended.
Early on the morning of the Sept. 2 standoff, police responded to a report that Bussiere had put a handgun to the head of a neighbor, cocked it and threatened the man. That response eventually led to the police standoff.
But Bussiere’s sister, Joan Leclair of Livermore, and his brother, Scott Bussiere of Auburn, told the Sun Journal Thursday that their brother never owned a handgun, only a BB gun and the hunting rifle he ended up using on himself.
Police searched Bussiere’s first-floor apartment but didn’t recover a handgun, according to a search warrant in 8th District Court. An investigation into the incident is ongoing, police said.
During the standoff, Leclair talked to Daniel Bussiere twice as he kept police at bay, the last time shortly before he took his life. He also had left two messages for her. Each time, he said he was upset about news reports that indicated he threatened a neighbor with a handgun, she said.
“He swore up and down to me, ‘I don’t have a handgun, Joan. I don’t know why they’re saying I have a gun. I don’t own a handgun.'”
Two days earlier, Bussiere was summonsed by Lewiston police for disorderly conduct stemming from an argument with Deborah Brown, a neighbor.
The next day, one of her sons told police that Bussiere was threatening him with a handgun from his truck. Police stopped Bussiere and searched his truck, Leclair said. They found no handgun but issued a summons for possession of marijuana.
A day later, Brown’s older son, Justin Lee Lord, 21, told police that Bussiere had put a silver and black .357-caliber handgun to the bridge of Lord’s nose and threatened him. Lord said in a statement to police that he could see the copper-colored bullets in the gun’s chamber.
Police responded to that threat, securing an arrest warrant for criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon. That’s when Bussiere retreated to his apartment, Leclair said.
“They just kept calling the cops on him,” Leclair said of Brown and her sons.
The last time she talked to her brother, around 6:30 p.m., Leclair said she tried to talk him into surrendering to police and going to the hospital with her. She had gone to the scene of the standoff with her brother, Scott. Police kept them informed and separated from the crowds that had gathered in the area. They had urged her not to call Bussiere, but she didn’t follow their advice.
Meanwhile, a state police negotiator had lost phone communication with Bussiere and resorted to using a megaphone.
Leclair said she pleaded with her brother, but he said he was afraid police would “trash him” if he came out because of the reports of his threats with a handgun. “He said: ‘I’m not comin’ out, so you can just go home.’ He hung up and that was the last time anyone spoke with him.”
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Bussiere left school after 11th grade, Leclair said. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was on
medication for it, she said. Although he never drank alcohol, he occasionally smoked marijuana to calm himself, she said. About 10 years ago, he was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, which was treated.
He worked doing manual labor at various businesses in the Twin Cities. He never married and had no children. He had various girlfriends over the years. His only criminal history stems from
two misdemeanor assault convictions in 1996 involving a girlfriend, but
there were no weapons involved, Leclair said.
He was sometimes antisocial and compulsive about keeping his things tidy, she said. He was meticulous, even sweeping the sidewalk in front of his Holland Street apartment, where he had lived for about six months.
His neatness habits drew ridicule from some neighbors.
A property manager with Rancourt Associates, the company that manages the apartment building where Daniel Bussiere lived, said he was a good tenant, paid his rent on time and for the most part had few problems with neighbors in the building.
“He did have his moments,” the manager said. “But if you left him alone and didn’t pick on him he would be all right.”
The manager, who asked not to be named, confirmed that Bussiere did work obsessively to keep the yard and sidewalks near the building clean and that some in the neighborhood “made fun of him for that.”
The manager also said that the day after the standoff, Lewiston police were notified that Justin Lord had entered Bussiere’s apartment and was heard by a painter to be talking about what he saw inside.
Justin Lord took a bandanna from Bussiere’s truck and told other tenants he wanted it for a souvenir, the manager said.
A pair of sunglasses were removed from Dan Bussiere’s apartment and later returned with the bandanna. The glasses were thrown back into the building and found in the hallway, the manager said. Lewiston police took both the bandanna and the sunglasses, the manager said.
Bussiere had spoken to the manager about being harassed by neighbors and said he may have to move because of it. “A week prior to this he told me he had enough and said, ‘They are getting me in trouble,'” the manager said.
The manager estimated the damage to the building caused during the course of the standoff and from the tear gas canisters shot through windows by Maine State Police at between $3,000 and $4,000.
Lewiston police said Thursday that Lord hadn’t been charged with a crime, but a police spokesman said Lord was expected to be interviewed again to determine the truthfulness of his statement to police about the handgun threat.
Scott Bussiere said his brother likely would have used a handgun in his final moments if he’d had one. “It’s harder to shoot yourself with a rifle than with a handgun,” he said.
Police found the 30-30 Savage rifle near Bussiere in his bedroom. Leclair said her brother never went hunting with it or used it for target practice. And he never was known to threaten anybody with it, she said.
Scott Bussiere said his brother had a temper. “He would get angry, get real angry and threaten to punch, not to shoot you.” He wasn’t violent with weapons, Leclair said.
Bussiere’s siblings say they aren’t interested in pointing fingers; they only want the truth to be known.
“I really don’t hold anybody responsible,” Leclair said. “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t. I know how my brother was.”
Of Brown and her family, Leclair said: “But I do feel that they do have a part in what took place.”
“Why didn’t they just stay away from him?” Scott Bussiere said. “If they had left him alone, he would have been fine.”
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