WEST PARIS — Two days after 18-year-old James Reynolds was shot by a state police trooper, details are emerging about the wounded teen and what happened Saturday night.
Reynolds, who lives on Route 219 in West Paris, was still listed in critical condition at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston late Monday night.
According to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland, Trooper Jason Wing was investigating a report of a suspicious man on Roy Road at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday when he encountered Reynolds, who was armed with a hunting rifle.
Details of the shooting have not been released, pending an investigation by the Maine Attorney General’s Office, McCausland said.
Tammy Komulainen, a resident of Roy Road, said she saw Reynolds the evening of the shooting by the Roy Road mailboxes, which are on Abbott Hill Road.
“He was hanging out about a half hour (by the mailboxes),” Komulainen said. “We waved to each other.”
Komulainen said she drove past Reynolds, who was on the roadside, and when she returned, he was still there.
That, Komulainen said, was when Reynolds began to make his way up Roy Road.
Concerned about several recent break-ins on Roy Road, Komulainen said she immediately put her dog out in front of her house and called her neighbor to say, “He’s heading your way.”
She said her neighbor called police.
Leaving her son at home with two of his friends, Komulainen said she left to attend a graduation at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris.
She said she was at the school when her son called to report hearing gunshots in the area and that one state police trooper had been at their home to question the boys while another trooper drove down the road.
Komulainen said Reynolds is no stranger to her. She woke up once and found him in her house. He fled when she saw him, she said.
Komulainen notified his mother about the incident.
Despite all that has happened, Komulainen said she feels sorry for Reynolds. He’s a young man who “fell through the cracks.”
“I feel so guilty” for waving to him Saturday night instead of stopping to offer him a ride or other help, she said.
dmcintire@sunjournal.com
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