Man sues state over brother’s death

BANGOR – The brother of a Somerville man shot to death in February 2002 by a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming wrongful death and seeking in excess of $1 million from state and county officials.

Daniel Buchanan of Hamilton, Mass., claims his brother Michael Buchanan, 61, was a member of a class-action lawsuit involving the Augusta Mental Health Institute in which he was entitled to specific professional medical care and treatment through a consent decree.

“They knew he was mentally ill” and failed to provide proper treatment, said Buchanan’s attorney, Robert J. Stolt, on Friday.

“The class member was to be provided with a community support worker and 24-hour per day, seven-day per week crisis intervention,” Buchanan’s lawsuit alleges. “The AMHI consent decree required the state to provide sufficient crisis intervention services to meet the individual class member’s needs.”

On Feb. 25, 2002, Deputies Robert Emerson and Kenneth Hatch were sent to Michael Buchanan’s Valley Road home in Somerville, where he lived alone. They went to investigate a complaint that Buchanan had started a fire in a neighbor’s woodpile.

According to police, Buchanan ordered them off his property and threatened to kill them. Ultimately, Hatch shot Buchanan while Buchanan attacked Emerson with a knife.

After an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office, the officer was cleared in March 2002 of any wrongdoing and the state determined that use of deadly force was justified.

At the time, Hatch believed that unlawful deadly force was being used against his partner, the attorney general concluded.

Previously, the neighbor who reported Buchanan set fire to a woodpile had called Buchanan’s caseworker to tell him Buchanan was in crisis, Stolt said. The caseworker’s response to the neighbor was to call police, according to Stolt. “It’s a real tragedy,” he said.

An administrative assistant to Sabra Burdick, acting commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services, said Friday the acting commissioner had not received a copy of the lawsuit and, therefore, could not comment. Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett declined comment for the same reason.

Julianne Edmonson was an intensive-case manager supervisor for Behavioral and Developmental Services and a supervisor to Joel Gilbert, who was Buchanan’s intensive-case manager.

According to the lawsuit, Michael Buchanan suffered from bipolar disorder with psychosis. The complaint claims that the goals established by Behavioral and Developmental Services were “minimal and superficial.”

Beginning in early 2001, the complaint alleges, Buchanan showed signs of “psychological decompensation,” meaning there was a failure of defense mechanisms to prevent a mental disorder. There was no crisis intervention by the state mental health employees, according to the lawsuit. “Defendants Robert Emerson and Kenneth Hatch acted with reckless indifference to the constitutional rights of Michael Buchanan, when knowing and believing that Michael Buchanan was barricaded in his own home, they failed to obtain the assistance of a crisis intervention team,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit seeks $1 million in compensatory damages, as well as unspecified punitive damages, interest, costs and attorney’s fees and such other relief as the court deems appropriate.

The U.S. District Court suit names as defendants: the state; Lynn Duby, former commissioner, and Burdick, acting commissioner, of the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services, in their individual and official capacities; Edmonson and Gilbert, both in their individual capacities; Lincoln County; Sheriff Brackett, in his individual and official capacity; and Deputies Emerson and Hatch.