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Lawmakers vote to study security at State House complex
The State and Local Government Committee endorses the bill on a party-line vote after one lawmaker testifies about run-ins with a man now charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection at U.S. Capitol.
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A legislative committee voted Monday to study ways to tighten security at the State House complex after a lawmaker testified about run-ins she had with a man who has been charged with participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Lawmakers on the State and Local Government Committee approved the bill on a party-line vote following testimony from Rep. Michele Meyer, D-Eliot, who detailed unsettling run-ins she had in 2018 and 2019 with Kyle Fitzsimons of Lebanon. He was arrested in February in Maine for his alleged participation in the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
A budget that will guide the next two years of spending in Maine passed the Legislature late last month without expanded funding for legal services for low-income Mainers. The decision opens the door further to litigation if lawmakers cannot resolve a decade of underfunding for a mandatory state service.
Lawmakers committed $17.6 million to the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, or MCILS, in each of the next two budget years. Most of that will be spent to reimburse private defense attorneys contracted with the state to represent those who cannot afford to hire their own lawyers.
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor.
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Maine attorney general finds officers justified in fatal shooting in Minot
Jason Gora s family in Auburn called police over concerns that he was expressing suicidal thoughts and was a danger to himself.
Associated Press
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AUGUSTA Maine’s top prosecutor will not bring criminal charges against four law enforcement officers who fatally shot an Auburn man holding a knife that they say they thought was a firearm.
Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a letter on Monday that the four officers were justified in shooting Jason Gora, 44, in Minot in February 2020, WGME-TV reported. The officers were initially placed on paid leave following the shooting.
Gora’s father had days earlier asked police to check the well-being of his son. Unable to locate him, police put out an alert for a black Jeep Wrangler.
Gora’s brother told police he and friends had found his brother in his Jeep in Auburn. When they tried to remove a handgun from his lap, he sped off. His brother said he was aware of text messages that indicated his brother was suicidal and he’d been hospitalized three months earlier after a suicide attempt.
Text messages in the days leading up to Feb. 2 suggested Gora may try to have police shoot him, according to Frey’s report.