Investigation continues into fatal Brewer shooting

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BREWER – The investigation into the fatal shooting on Monday of a 47-year-old man resumed Tuesday as police returned to Maple Street to canvass the neighborhood for more information about the incident.

Authorities on Tuesday identified the dead man as Eric Loessin of Texas and said he had been living in the first-floor apartment at 43 Maple St. for about four months. Loessin reportedly lived there with Mary Coleman, 70, although their exact relationship wasn’t known by police.

Loessin was shot by an upstairs neighbor, Eric Lane, 27, owner of the apartment building and a University of Maine security guard, according to police.

An autopsy was performed Tuesday in Augusta, but an official at the state medical examiner’s office said Tuesday afternoon she couldn’t release the results until family members had been identified.

Police don’t know Loessin’s hometown in Texas. Family members were contacted in Lagrange and Riverside, Texas, according to a police detective.

Authorities remained cautious about what they released to the public, saying that the incident still is under investigation.

Representatives of the Maine Attorney General’s Office, the state medical examiner’s office and the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory are expected to meet next week with investigators and discuss the case, Detective Sgt. Stephen Pickering of the Maine State Police said. From there, the Attorney General’s Office is expected to decide whether to file charges against Lane.

Lane isn’t in custody, and Coleman’s whereabouts Tuesday were unknown. Only a few lights were on Tuesday night in the top floor apartment thought to be Lane’s. No one answered the front or side doors at the Brewer building.

A state police detective was seen Tuesday afternoon canvassing the neighborhood, but the area appeared to have returned to normal.

According to early reports, Coleman fled to the upstairs apartment around 6 p.m. following a dispute with Loessin. Coleman called the police, but before they arrived, there was a confrontation between Loessin and Lane.

Lane then shot Loessin, according to police.

A neighbor, Brian McAvoy, who lives across the street from the apartment building, said Tuesday that he didn’t hear the shot, but saw a number of police cruisers pull up in front of the building. Lane was outside with a phone in his hand, McAvoy said.

The officers ordered Lane at gunpoint to put down the phone and get on the ground, which Lane did, the neighbor said.

“He came after me,” McAvoy heard Lane tell the police.

Lane has been a UM security guard since April 1999 and does not carry a gun as part of his job there, a campus official said Tuesday.

A state police spokesman said, however, that Lane has a concealed weapons permit. The gun used in the shooting was a semiautomatic pistol, Pickering said.

Authorities are approaching the investigation from many angles, including the possibility the shooting was in self-defense, Pickering said.

“We’re working every angle, and self-defense is one of those angles,” the detective said.

Lane and Coleman have been cooperating with police, and no decision has been made as to whether charges will be filed, Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, reported Tuesday.

The shooting was the first gun-related homicide in Brewer in more than 10 years, Brewer acting police Captain Perry Antone said Tuesday.

It was not the first time, however, that police had been to that building. Officers were called to the apartment two hours before the shooting occurred, the police captain said.

Police had been to the building 35 times since 1998, for reports of disturbances, noise complaints and intoxicated people, although obviously not all of them involved the same individuals, Antone said.

Most recently, Brewer police were called to the Coleman apartment at 3:55 p.m. Monday when an anonymous caller reported a disturbance. A man was at the apartment, and police officers gave him a disorderly conduct warning, the police captain said.

Neighbor Paula Richard said Tuesday that she saw police talking Monday afternoon to a stocky man on the side steps. She described that man as making motions with his hands in an animated fashion. Two police cruisers were parked in the driveway while at one point, a third cruiser drove up the street, turned around and left, Richard said.

Les Spaulding said he has lived for 50 years on the street. His family’s scrap metal business, L .H. Spaulding and Son, is right next to the building where the man was killed.

Spaulding said Maple Street normally is a quiet neighborhood and that he tries to be neighborly to everyone he sees.

But he said the man who lived with Coleman wouldn’t have anything to do with him Monday when he called to him across the fence.

Spaulding said Loessin turned away and mumbled when Spaulding said hello. Loessin did the same thing when Spaulding tried to make small talk, telling him what a nice day it was, the neighbor said.