Attorney General Aaron Frey has determined that a Waldo County Sheriff’s Office sergeant was justified in fatally shooting Daniel Ryan, 65, in his Belfast apartment in June, after Ryan had made threats to burn his building down and approached officers with a gas can that was on fire.
The attorney general’s office investigates all cases using or involving deadly force by police.
According to the three-page report, Ryan called police in the early afternoon that day, demanding that Belfast officers come to his home immediately and threatening to burn his building down. When a dispatcher called him back, he came off as even more agitated and warned authorities they had “10 to 15 minutes before I burn this [expletive] down. Get the [expletive] over here,” the attorney general’s report states.
Two Belfast police officers then found Ryan on the second floor of the six-unit building and engaged him from outside. They then called for other tenants to leave the building after Ryan continued with his threats to “blow the place up,” according to the report. But they were not able to contact every person in the building.
They also called for firefighters to turn off the propane tanks behind the building and decided to enter the building to take Ryan into custody, according to the report.
By that time, members of the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office had also arrived at the scene. Sgt. Nicholas Oettinger, along with another sheriff’s deputy and a Belfast officer, went upstairs and unsuccessfully attempted to kick down the door, according to the report. They managed to break through with a sledgehammer, and Oettinger, who was the first to enter, encountered Ryan emerging from a room to the left of the officers.
In an incident that was caught on policy body camera footage, Ryan was carrying a five-gallon gas can that was on fire. Oettinger yelled for Ryan to put his hands up and drop the can. But when Ryan didn’t comply, Oettinger shot him and yelled for the other officers in the room to “Get out!” repeatedly, according to the report.
Oettinger told investigators after the fact that he shot Ryan out of concern that the gas can was going to blow up and harm the officers, according to the report.
Belfast firefighters then extinguished the fire that had been left. Ryan was pronounced dead with gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen, according to the attorney general’s report.