Suicide ends police standoff Down East was man due in court

COLUMBIA FALLS – After a six-hour standoff Monday, a 63-year-old man who told police he was “going out in a blaze of glory” stepped onto his front porch, put a gun to his head and killed himself, Washington County Sheriff Joe Tibbetts said.

Around 9:30 a.m., Frank Dorr’s attorney, David Bate of Bangor, called the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and reported he had spoken with Dorr and his client had suggested he might “harm himself,” Lt. Wes Hussey of the Maine State Police said.

Dorr was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Bangor for a competency hearing. In February, a federal grand jury charged Dorr with making a false statement on a firearms application and with unlawful possession by a prohibited person.

In May 2001, Dorr tried to buy a HiPoint 9 mm pistol from a gun dealer in Machias. On the application he said he had not been indicted, when in fact he had been indicted by a Machias grand jury three months earlier.

A Washington County grand jury in January 2001 had indicted Dorr for burglary, criminal trespass, unlawful possession of a Schedule W drug and two counts of assault.

The charges stemmed from a May 2000 incident in which Dorr allegedly had entered a Columbia home and assaulted the owner and his estranged wife. The unlawful possession charge stemmed from Dorr having a prescription painkiller with him when police arrested him.

Meanwhile, in November 2001, a state District Court judge had issued a protection-from-abuse order that prohibited Dorr from harassing, stalking and threatening his wife, Doris Dorr. Nor was he supposed to possess firearms. Yet, while he was under the protection order, Dorr was in possession of a .22-caliber revolver, a rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun along with several rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.

When Dorr did not appear in federal court Monday morning in Bangor, the judge issued an arrest warrant. Washington County Deputy Rodney Merritt and two Maine State Police troopers were sent to Dorr’s home on the Centerville Road.

Tibbetts said the officers contacted Dorr by telephone and Dorr said he had a 9 mm pistol. He then made the “blaze of glory” statement. Dorr “advised the deputy that he was not coming out,” Tibbetts said.

The officers alerted the Maine State Police tactical team, and the team, along with the state police crisis negotiating unit, went to the scene.

Hussey said the tactical team negotiator spoke with Dorr for about an hour, beginning around 2:30 p.m. “He was making threats to do harm to himself. He absolutely did not want to go back to jail,” Hussey said.

The lieutenant said the negotiators felt they were making progress when Dorr said he needed to take a break from the telephone conversation. “He terminated the call, came out on the front steps and committed suicide,” Hussey said. He said he believes Dorr used a 9 mm pistol.

The lieutenant said the Maine State Police criminal investigative unit was examining the scene.

NEWS reporter Judy Harrison contributed to this story.