A Bangor police officer acted in self-defense last summer when she shot at a woman armed with a knife at a trailer park.
That’s the conclusion of investigators with the Maine attorney general’s office, which released their findings in the shooting on Friday.
Officers Bobbylee Gillespie and Michaela Sprague were called to Finson Road after a man called 911 about 3:05 a.m. on June 25, 2023, to report that 39-year-old Linda Coburn assaulted him twice in the home they shared, according to the report.
While Gillespie and Sprague were en route to Finson Road, dispatchers told the officers that Coburn was “sharpening a large knife.” Coburn then followed her 17-year-old daughter outside the home while carrying the knife, investigators said.
Upon her arrival, Gillespie ordered Coburn to drop the knife, and Coburn’s daughter also yelled at her to drop the knife.
Coburn told Gillespie to “shoot her” because she “was not going back to jail,” and then began slicing at her wrists, according to the report.
Coburn then took steps toward the man, yelling that “she was not going back to jail for him,” investigators wrote.
Gillespie then fired two shots at Coburn, and when Coburn didn’t heed additional commands to drop the knife and continued to advance toward the man, Gillespie fired again, according to the report.
None of the shots hit Coburn.
Investigators wrote that in the minute between when the officers arrived and when the shots were fired, Coburn had been ordered to drop the knife more than 20 times.
State police recovered two knives from the scene.
Given that Coburn was “screaming and acting unpredictably and erratically,” investigators concluded that Gillespie acted in self-defense of herself, Sprague and the 911 caller.