LEWISTON — Bates Street resident Thomas Dunne moved to Lewiston from Lynn, Massachusetts, about three and a half years ago with high hopes for a city atmosphere with less violence. But at least once a week he hears gunshots ring through the streets.

“It’s constant,” Dunne said. “I’m trying to move.”

Last September he and his wife arrived at their apartment while police were pursuing suspected shooters. From the Knox Street side of the Bates Street building, they saw men running down the road with guns.

The couple drove down Park Street, Dunne said, “and they come running through with their guns and the cops after them.”

All Dunne could do was point out to police where the suspects ran off.

“They ride up and down the street in summertime, hanging out of their vans shooting . . . guns in the air,” Dunne said. “I just go in the house.”

This shooting was one of four reported in September 2024, according to Lewiston Police Department data, and was among 35 total shootings last year.

The number of confirmed shootings in the city — those positively identified by police through witnesses and evidence — has risen by 1,750% over the past 15 years, from 2 in 2010 to 35 in 2024. The most confirmed shootings in a year topped out at 42 in 2022. Many other reported shootings go unconfirmed.

Residents living in Lewiston’s dense neighborhoods say the issue is a seemingly daily occurrence, causing them to live in fear.

Police say they are taking action, and that they need the help of the community to slow the rate of shootings.

Some community leaders, however, say police aren’t doing enough for the neighborhoods and residents most affected by the violence.

Police take action

Lewiston police Chief David St. Pierre said in September the department would be taking measures to increase its presence in the more dangerous residential areas.

The press conference, held with community stakeholders, followed a wave of shootings that began with the July 14 shooting death of 17-year-old Sahal Muridi and culminated three weeks later with a shooting near the Masjid Salaam Mosque on Bartlett Street and Mike McGraw Park, where 300 children and their families were celebrating the start of the new school year.

St. Pierre shared plans to increase foot and cruiser patrols especially via the department’s Community Resource Officer team, to partner with U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security, and to partner with homeowners and landlords for private surveillance camera footage.

St. Pierre said the department’s efforts are showing positive signs.

On Nov. 12, the department started its Citizens’ Police Academy course through Lewiston Adult Education. The program, led by officers, is designed to provide residents with insight into how law enforcement works.

The Lewiston City Council approved a new weekend curfew in early October aimed at keeping kids indoors. The 10 p.m. curfew, replacing the previous 12 a.m. curfew, was proposed by Councilor Eryn Soule-Leclair after officers used the former ordinance to stop two minors out after curfew. The juveniles were found with guns.

St. Pierre said the department continues to work with other Maine police departments and federal law enforcement. They also work with a conciliation specialist from the U.S. Department of Justice, who helps bridge the gap in communication between police and community members, for example by showing officers how to navigate situations with cultural and linguistic barriers that tend to exacerbate peoples’ unwillingness to speak with police.

Through its Community Resource Officer team, police have increased foot patrols to 50 to 60 hours a week split between two officers, St. Pierre said. The walking beats typically occur during statistically busy hours, and officers “self-initiate” calls, which include property site checks and community events like youth games, business stop-ins and homeless encounters. The sergeant in charge of the CRO team keeps in constant contact with the DOJ conciliation specialist, St. Pierre said.

The department has also been working with local lawmakers on legislation that would make the sharing of information easier between schools and police departments, St. Pierre said.

The bill, LD 386, from Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, would allow police to alert a superintendent or principal to students at risk of or involved with illegal activities, specifically dangerous weapons, St. Pierre said.

St. Pierre said he has also met with Valerie Stanfill, chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and Androscoggin County District Attorney Neil McLean to discuss ways they can work together.

“We’re all up against it,” St. Pierre said. “We’re all trying to do the best we can with what we have. So, we’re trying to think of anything that we can do to better enforce and, you know, do our job.”

Special operations

Lewiston’s Crime Reduction Unit, launched in 2023 and consisting of three officers on the daily beat, deals with “quality of life issues,” St. Pierre said.

The department’s 2023 report states CRU assists several federal and state agencies with their Lewiston-based operations.

Officers in the unit also perform proactive enforcement, St. Pierre told the City Council Sept. 3. They focus on enforcing liquor laws, criminal trespass, property issues, city ordinance violations, loitering, traffic laws and response to “violent crimes that have a direct impact in the community relative to the crimes being committed.” CRU also serves as “a supplemental unit to assist patrol in major events.”

According to Lewiston’s 2023 report, the first year CRU was active, the team responded to 3,890 calls for service, wrote 430 offense reports, composed 501 arrest reports of criminal and civil charges, made 673 traffic stops and issued 551 traffic citations. CRU also seized seven illegal firearms.

In 2024, Lewiston police seized 71 illegal firearms, St. Pierre noted.

Prior to CRU, the department had its Selective Enforcement Team, consisting of one detective and two patrol officers, Detective Nicholas Wiers said. The team was active for about seven years before it was dissolved around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wiers, president of the Lewiston Maine Association of Police Union, was on the SET beat for about three years. The team focused on violent crime, drugs, guns and assisting with strings of crimes. The team would also assist with upticks in shootings, though narcotics were the bulk of crimes the team dealt with — which often involve guns as well, he said.

The team worked closely with the state attorney general’s office and usually resulted in quick-turnaround cases, Wiers said.

“Smaller cases, but in my opinion, it helped out tremendously,” Wiers said. “We were doing controlled narcotics purchases and then search warrants on these drug houses and apartments. When we were executing those search warrants, we were seizing a pretty substantial amount of narcotics and firearms. . . . It wasn’t uncommon for us to hit one or two doors a week. That sets a tone.”

That team had a brief overlap with Operation Hotspot, a program that ran from 2012 to 2015, with officers going around the clock on select days with support from nearly two dozen outside law enforcement agencies.

Operation Hotspot began as an unfunded initiative in 2012 and maintained operation from 2013-2015 with federal funds. The program targeted drug- and violence-related crimes and employed low-level charges, like disorderly conduct, which give police more opportunities to search for weapons.

Under Operation Hotspot, officers worked with nearly 20 federal, state, county and local agencies across 75 details to charge upwards of 360 offenders, 40 of whom faced indictments, the department said. Police seized 50 firearms, over 4.5 pounds of illegal drugs and more than $155,000 in drug-trafficking money. Police also made over 2,350 community contacts.

The CRU runs in the daytime Monday to Friday, though the unit occasionally shifts its schedules. SET ran from 3 to 11 p.m., changing hours occasionally to late-night or early-morning schedules. Operation Hotspot operated during days and times when crime was expected to be high.

According to department data, between March 2010 and October 2023, 85 reported shootings occurred between 5 p.m. and 12 a.m. and 58 shootings between 12 a.m. and 5 a.m.

In 2023, 27 of 32 reported shootings in which the times of day were logged occurred outside the normal daytime hours that CRU operates.

Through the unit’s two-year tenure, 2024 produced the lowest number of suspects as a percentage of shootings since 2010. In 2024, police identified suspects in 16 of 35 reported shootings. In 2023, police ID’d suspects in 16 of 38 shootings.

During Operation Hotspot’s run, in 2012 police identified suspects in six of seven reported shootings; in 2013 two suspects out of three shootings; in 2014 five suspects out of five shootings; and in 2015, three suspects out of three shootings.

Shootings increased from three in 2015 to 10 in 2016, the year after Operation Hotspot ended. Numbers fell in 2017 to seven shootings, and jumped to 18 in 2018, with eight cases lacking suspects. Numbers fell slightly in 2019 and 2020, and began increasing in 2021, after the Selective Enforcement Team was dissolved.

Communication breakdown?

Despite Lewiston police’s commitment to connecting with local organizations, community leaders say communication is not what it should be.

Lewiston-Auburn Youth Network director Iman Osman said his organization and others close to it have not held meetings with police. Interactions with police, especially immediately after an incident, are not productive, Osman said.

“We see these kids shooting at each other. Police show up, see nothing, and just drive away. That’s it. … They’re like, ‘This is a community problem, this does not concern us. You guys know who’s doing this, you guys know these kids. You’ve got to deal with them,’” Osman said. “Police can only do so much … but come on, you’re getting paid to do this, it’s part of your job … and you should be holding these kids, these people, accountable.”

On the flipside, police say the public is increasingly uncooperative. St. Pierre and several police staff have said part of the difficulty in bringing criminals to justice is an unwillingness on the part of victims and witnesses to speak to them. Some of that is due to “snitch culture,” but much of it is because of fears of retaliation, or simply not trusting police.

Lewiston police spokesperson Lt. Derek St. Laurent said it bothers him that local organizations claim police are not communicative enough and don’t patrol downtown’s high-crime areas.

He said that on several occasions when organizations have reached out to meet, times of meetings have been changed at or near the last minute or the meetings are announced too soon in advance.

“Look, we’re always willing to meet with people and talk about community issues,” St. Laurent said, adding that the community’s issues are police issues and that police are always willing to work with anyone who wants to help curb illegal activities.

This issue came into stark focus March 7 after a shooting in front of the Masjidu Salaam Mosque at 243 Bartlett St. Lewiston police said there was “not a lot of cooperation from the numerous Mosque members who were attending prayer.”

Rilwan Osman, director of Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services, who had been at the mosque for Ramadan prayers that night, took exception to the characterization that his community was not cooperating. He said most members of the congregation had already gone home by the time the shooting occurred, and those who were still there were inside the mosque. He was the only witness and he cooperated with police, Osman added.

“We definitely want to work with police,” Rilwan Osman said. “What the police posted on Facebook just isn’t true. We want to work with them to stop (the crime in our community).”

As for police not having a large presence downtown?

“That’s 100% false,” St. Laurent said. “We have three primary beats downtown, plus an extra beat dedicated to that area. The majority of our calls are downtown. Just because people don’t see us doesn’t mean we aren’t there — we may be on a call.”

As for St. Pierre, when it comes down to resolving incidents like reported shootings, all he wants is for his officers to be able to get to the bottom of the issue.

“It’s incredibly frustrating when we get to a victim and we want nothing more than to help that person, have that case solved and arrest the appropriate person that might be involved or responsible for shooting somebody, for instance,” St. Pierre said in February. “And if we’re greeted with ‘that’s not going to happen’ … Without cooperation, it puts us immediately at an immediate disadvantage.”

‘Trust is a key factor’

Born and raised in Lewiston, Wiers recalls a city from his youth in which shootings were never an issue. Over the past 10 years, that has changed significantly, he said, and police are feeling it.

Many officers are frustrated with the increasing violence and the demands placed on the department, Wiers said. Echoing sentiments from St. Pierre, Wiers also said the department struggles with recruitment and retention, and a number of experienced officers have left to work elsewhere.

“This is probably the busiest and most violent city in the state,” he said. “But we are here for the community. A strong relationship between citizens and police is essential for solving crime. Trust is a key factor, and we want to work together to make the city safer.”

Lewiston police Detective Joe Philippon said that, speaking as a Lewiston resident, views on the police can be influenced by what part of city they live in.

“Local law enforcement provides invaluable public service to our community,” Philippon said. “However, mistakes can be made, and oversights can occur. One can be very supportive of law enforcement and still at times be disappointed, frustrated or expecting more.”

Philippon said successful police departments must be willing to listen to and respond to public concerns because people expect action, follow-through and results. When circumstances change, police have an obligation to adapt and try new approaches.

Philippon said the common themes he’s observed in successful law enforcement are genuineness in care for the community, combined with strong two-way communication.

“The police and specifically police leadership are generally held in high regard in those communities that are guided by these practices,” Philippon said.

As police work to connect with the community, the community’s mood is increasingly anxious.

Sabattus resident Rebecca Sanders said she moved away from Lewiston after living there for nearly 15 years. As the occasional stabbing turned into gunshots, she decided to move for her own safety, mental health and for a better environment, she said.

“Each gunshot is scary . . . and the only instinct is to duck or to hide,” Sanders said. “You just don’t know where they’re coming from, because you just know there’s so many guns in this area.”

For Thomas Dunne, the Bates Street resident, the violence is a bit more palpable as he sits outside watching suspected drug seekers and dealers come and go.

The most scared Dunne has ever been while living in his apartment came on a July afternoon following a shooting that left two dead.

“It was terrifying to see the fire department come up here after those people were shot on the street, using the firehose to rinse the blood off the road,” he said.

This story is the second in a series of stories exploring gun violence in Lewiston. We will take a deep dive into how incidents of shots fired have affected the feeling of safety in the city, particularly in the downtown area where the majority of the shootings have taken place. As a part of the downtown community, the Sun Journal staff has taken a great deal of personal accountability on this topic in the interest of public safety. If you have personally been affected by gun violence in Lewiston and want to tell your story, you can email staff writer Joe Charpentier at jcharpentier@sunjournal.com. 

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