OAKFIELD, Maine — An Oakfield man shot by a state police sergeant remains at a Bangor hospital Saturday, one day after he was shot in an armed confrontation outside a grocery store.
Steve McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety, said in a statement Saturday that John Corneil, 54, remained at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. He was initially treated at Houlton Regional Hospital for gunshot wounds, and later underwent surgery at the Bangor hospital. A spokesperson for EMMC said that they had no information on Corneil Saturday.
Corneil was shot by Sgt. Chad Fuller outside the Oakfield Thriftway on the Ridge Road after he and two other troopers went to arrest Corneil on several warrants, according to Lt. Col. John Cote, deputy chief of the State Police. Cote said that Corneil was wanted on warrants charging him with assault, criminal threatening, terrorizing and reckless conduct related to an incident earlier in the week in Smyrna. According to Cote, Corneil challenged troopers outside a convenience store with a handgun. The weapon was later determined to be a pellet gun that resembled a Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol. The incident was reportedly witnessed by several patrons of the store.
Corneil has a significant history with law enforcement. According to a criminal history record obtained from the State Bureau of Identification, he was arrested in June 2008 after refusing to submit to a warrant for his arrest. No information was provided about the reasons for the warrant, but the record indicates Corneil was sentenced to 48 hours in jail and fined $250.
He was sentenced in March 1999 to two years in prison with all but 45 days suspended on a charge of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, for firing at a state police officer who tried to serve him with an arrest warrant in late August 1998.
According to archives from the Bangor Daily News, Corneil barricaded himself in his Merrill house on Route 212 for four hours when the trooper tried to serve him with the 1998 warrant. That warrant stemmed from his failure to appear in court on charges connected to a police chase earlier that summer, for which Corneil was charged with assault on an officer.
Fuller, a 20-year-veteran of the state police, remains on paid administrative leave while the incident is reviewed. This is standard procedure while the Attorney General’s Office investigates the incident.
