A Calais man who shot and wounded a woman and her infant son in a violent domestic dispute and subsequently engaged in a standoff with police died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities disclosed Thursday.
Daniel Pinney, 26, originally was reported to have been shot dead by Calais police after officers arrived at his home the night of July 3, according to the Maine Department of Public Safety.
However, an autopsy conducted on July 5 showed that the cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
“Mr. Pinney was struck by other bullets, but the fatal shot has been determined to have been self-inflicted,” Tim Feeley, a special assistant in the office of the attorney general, said Thursday. He provided the Bangor Daily News with a copy of the autopsy report.
Pinney was armed with a 9 mm pistol, according to the autopsy report, while police were armed with larger-caliber weapons.
Pinney was wounded by police gunfire. He was struck by two bullets in the chest and a third bullet to the upper left arm, the autopsy revealed.
Pinney confronted Megan Sherrard, 21, also of Calais, in the parking lot of a doctor’s office and forced her with her 6-week-old son, Luca, to return with him to his house, according to police.
Sherrard suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and her baby was shot in the foot. Both were transported that day to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Efforts Thursday to learn about their current conditions were unsuccessful.
Calais police officers John Preston and Joseph Bartlett both shot at Pinney after arriving at his home, just as Sherrard and her baby were fleeing it.
The attorney general’s office is still conducting an investigation into the officers’ role in the shooting of Pinney, said Feeley.
Pinney had been free on bail for a domestic violence criminal threatening charge involving Sherrard, and a condition of his bail was that he was to have no contact with her. He had been arrested by Calais police May 18, and Sherrard had filed a protection order from harassment and abuse against Pinney on June 11.
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