WATERVILLE, Maine — A man from Troy who created a police standoff earlier this month when he threatened suicide may now have to pay police for intervening.
Waterville police have issued a summons to Gary Cross, who parked his truck in the Waterville Police Department parking lot on Dec. 7, armed with a gun. Police successfully negotiated with Cross to surrender, but are now charging him with a civil violation for creating the standoff.
Jenna Mehnert of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Maine says the summons doesn't make any sense.
"It's making an assumption that there was some kind of intent behind that that simply wasn't there," she says. "He was simply looking for help — maybe not in the most effective way."
Mehnert says this should be a story about how effectively police handled the situation instead of about punishing a person in need.
"A person in a mental health crisis cannot be charged for needing help," she says. "It just makes no sense."
Waterville police declined comment on the case, but Chief Joseph Massey is quoted in news reports immediately after the standoff that it cost the department hundreds of thousands of dollars.
