MEXICO — The state’s Deadly Force Review Panel has issued reports on a pair of police shootings that were declared justified by the Office of the Maine Attorney General nearly two years ago. 

The reports involve a pair of police shootings in Mexico; one in August 2022 and the other in October 2022. 

The panel does not dispute that police were justified in both shootings, but suggests things that could have been done differently by police involved in the shootings.

On Aug. 31, 2022, a 911 caller reported seeing a man with a gun outside an apartment building in Mexico, according to court records. Police arrived at the scene and found 31-year-old Brandon Dearborn with a gun in his hand. 

They ordered him to drop the weapon, according to police. 

Instead of complying with their order, Dearborn urged the officers to shoot him and raised the pistol toward them, prompting the officers to fire, shooting him multiple times, according to court records. 

Dearborn, who was prohibited from owning firearms, had been holding a loaded Ruger Model SR22, a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and seven rounds of ammunition, according to police reports. 

Police tried to use tasers to subdue Dearborn, but when he pointed a gun at the two police officers, Mexico Police Lt. Derek MacDonald and Rumford Police Officer Bradlee Galant fired at him. 

Dearborn survived the shooting and was later sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for being a felon with a gun. 

In March of 2023, investigators from the attorney general’s office deemed the police shooting justified after their investigation into the matter.

The Deadly Force Review Panel made several observations about the shooting, including the fact that no ranking officer took command at the scene. 

They also suggested that officers involved in shootings should not be involved in the on-scene investigation, as was the case in the aftermath of the Dearborn shooting. 

And they advised that all police firearms should be periodically inspected. That suggestion came after a report of a malfunctioned rifle at the scene of the stand-off. 

The panel also weighed in on the facts in the case of another Mexico police shooting that happened 2 months later. 

On the evening of Oct. 13, 2022, police responded to a report of domestic violence at 87 Roxbury Road and were confronted by an armed man, later identified by police as 22-year-old Daniel Tibbetts. 

Police said Tibbetts was armed with a machete when he began to approach Mexico Police Officer Dustin Broughton. 

According to reports, Tibbetts began walking toward Broughton, machete in hand, even after having been repeatedly ordered to drop the weapon. 

“Officer Broughton, fearing that Mr. Tibbetts would attack him with the machete, shot at Mr. Tibbetts,” according to the Office of the Maine Attorney General’s review of the case. “Mr. Tibbetts turned slightly while looking at Officer Broughton and started to walk towards Officer Broughton in a manner that Officer Broughton perceived as an imminent attack with the machete. Officer Broughton fired two more shots and Mr. Tibbetts fell to the ground.” 

Video footage of the scene revealed that Broughton had repeatedly ordered Tibbetts to drop the weapon before shooting. In April of 2023, the attorney general’s office ruled that the officer was justified in shooting the suspect in protection of himself and others at the scene. 

Tibbetts survived the shooting. 

The panel’s report concluded that officers at the scene should have had tasers available to them, but did not. They also noted that there was no body camera footage of the incident. 

The panel reports do not impact conclusions made earlier by the attorney general’s office. 

The panel itself was convened by Gov. Janet Mills in 2017 with the goal of providing “a deeper analysis of deadly force incidents.”