Search fatalities

Joseph Arbour

Age : 36

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 09/27/2021

Location : Center Street near Value Inn, 170 Center Street

City : Auburn

County : Androscoggin

State : Maine

Agency : Auburn Police Department

Officer(s) :Sgt. Steven Gosselin

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during domestic disturbance

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/27/2021, Auburn Police Sgt. Steven Gosselin shot and killed 36-year-old Joseph Arbour on Center Street after police responded to the Value Inn for a report that a woman was being held against her will by a man with firearms.
.
Police received the call at approximately 10 a.m. Officer Andrew Shute initially responded to the second-floor motel room and heard a man and woman arguing before they became quiet when he knocked. Police forced entry and discovered that the people inside had left through a window. Security video subsequently showed Arbour and three other people leaving the room by way of the balcony.
.
Gosselin encountered Arbour walking away from the motel toward Center Street and believed he might be connected to the reported hostage situation. According to the Maine Attorney General's later investigation, Gosselin repeatedly called to Arbour and asked him to stop. Arbour continued walking, and Gosselin followed and attempted to grab him.
.
According to the Attorney General's account, Arbour turned and pointed a black Hi-Point pistol directly at Gosselin. Gosselin drew his handgun and repeatedly ordered Arbour to drop his weapon. Arbour then placed his pistol against his own head and threatened to kill himself, establishing that the encounter had developed into a mental health crisis.
.
Arbour subsequently lowered the pistol to his side and continued moving toward Center Street rather than surrendering it. The Attorney General reported that Gosselin followed as Arbour moved toward a busy commercial area. Gosselin later said he feared Arbour might shoot him or another person or take someone else hostage.
.
Gosselin fired three rounds. Arbour was struck and died at the scene. The state medical examiner determined that Arbour died from a gunshot wound to the back.
.
A handgun was recovered at the scene. Toxicology testing later detected fentanyl and methamphetamine in Arbour's system.
.
The initial police portrayal of the incident was challenged almost immediately on a significant point. Brianna Reeve, who identified herself as Arbour's girlfriend, disputed the premise that Arbour had been holding her hostage. Reeve said she had not been held against her will and wanted to know who had made the hostage allegation. She said she had been staying at the motel but had been in a different room from Arbour during the preceding hours.
.
Reeve also questioned why police used deadly force. She described Arbour as loving and caring and said he had been trying to protect her following a recent dispute. Her account therefore directly contradicted the allegation that she was Arbour's hostage, although it did not establish that she witnessed the final confrontation between Arbour and Gosselin.
.
The Maine Attorney General's Office investigated Gosselin's use of deadly force. The final report was not issued until April 2024, more than two and a half years after the killing. The Attorney General concluded that Gosselin reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to protect himself and others and ruled the shooting legally justified.
.
The case later received another independent state-level review. Maine's Deadly Force Review Panel examined Arbour's killing and summarized the encounter in its 2025 annual report. The panel likewise described Arbour pointing the pistol at Gosselin, putting it against his own head and threatening suicide, then moving toward businesses and other people while continuing to possess the gun.
.
No encounter-related wrongful-death or federal civil-rights lawsuit by Arbour's family was identified in the later public record reviewed for this update.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND
Steven Gosselin was the Auburn police sergeant who fired all three shots at Arbour. Later reporting and the Attorney General's completed investigation publicly established his identity and provided substantially more information about the circumstances than was available immediately after the shooting.
.
The Auburn Police Department itself had a significant excessive-force case moving through federal court during the period surrounding Arbour's killing. Romelly Dastinot sued Auburn officers Scott Watkins, Tyler Ham and Mark Lemos over a 2014 encounter, alleging unlawful seizure and excessive force. In June 2022, a federal jury found that Auburn Officer Lemos had unlawfully stopped Dastinot and that Officer Watkins had used excessive force by allowing a police dog to continue biting Dastinot after he was on the ground. The jury awarded Dastinot $150,000.
.
The federal litigation is significant because it resulted in an affirmative jury finding of unconstitutional conduct by an Auburn officer rather than merely an allegation against the department. The case continued through post-trial proceedings into 2023.
.
Auburn's own later internal-affairs reporting also documents continuing citizen complaints against the department. Its 2023 Internal Affairs Summary reported seven citizen complaints that year, including one sustained policy violation. The report said this represented an increase from three citizen complaints in 2021, the year Gosselin killed Arbour.
.
The later state review of Arbour's death provides an unusual additional point of context. By 2026, when Maine's Deadly Force Review Panel published its annual report containing the Arbour case, Gosselin's shooting was still being formally examined within the state's broader review system nearly five years after the killing.
.
The central conflict in the historical record is therefore unusually clear. Police responded on the premise that Arbour was holding a woman hostage; the woman identified as his girlfriend publicly said she had not been his hostage. The Attorney General nevertheless concluded that, whatever the accuracy of the original hostage report, Gosselin subsequently faced an armed man who pointed a pistol at him and then continued toward a populated commercial area while refusing to surrender the weapon.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.centralmaine.com/2021/09/27/police-officer-involved-in-a-shooting-on-center-street-in-auburn/
https://www.sunjournal.com/2024/04/19/attorney-general-auburn-police-shooting-of-armed-man-in-2021-was-justified/
https://wgme.com/news/local/maine-attorney-general-deems-auburn-2021-officer-involved-shooting-as-justified
https://www.mainepublic.org/courts-and-crime/2021-09-27/maines-attorney-general-is-looking-into-a-possible-officer-involved-shooting
https://www.wmtw.com/article/auburn-maine-office-involved-shooting/37757016
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2021/09/27/central-maine/auburn-police-on-scene-of-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/04/22/central-maine/central-maine-police-courts/auburn-police-shooting-steven-gosselin-joseph-arbour/
https://www.maine.gov/ag/about-us/special-projects/deadly-force-review-panel/tue-03172026-1641-2025-annual-report-deadly
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/maine/medce/2%3A2018cv00166/53982/208/
https://www.sunjournal.com/2022/06/20/jury-auburn-police-officer-used-excessive-force/
https://www.auburnmaine.gov/Documents/Departments/Police/2023%20INTERNAL%20AFFAIRS%20SUMMARY.pdf