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Barbara Stewart's brother is hospitalized after authorities are called to his apartment around the time the ruling is released.

By DENNIS HOEY, Staff Writer June 26, 2009

A Biddeford police officer was legally justified when he shot and killed a local woman in March, the state attorney general has ruled.

Janet T. Mills issued a statement late Thursday saying that Sgt. Jeffrey Greene acted in self-defense when he shot and killed 47-year-old Barbara Stewart outside her Main Street home.

The investigation confirmed that Stewart was armed with a silver-and-black pellet gun that resembled a semiautomatic pistol, and that she had left behind a suicide note in her apartment with instructions on what should happen to her personal belongings.

Stewart's older brother, Jim, lived in the same apartment building as his sister and he saw police shoot her. Friends say he never recovered from her death.

On Thursday night, around the same time as the attorney general's statement was released, authorities were called to Jim Stewart's apartment at 356 Main St. in Biddeford. Patrick Pilon of Saco, a close friend, said Stewart had tried to harm himself.

Stewart was transported to Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, and then to Maine Medical Center in Portland, a nursing supervisor said. A spokesman said he was in critical condition Thursday night.

"If he's dead, he would be happier ... that's what Jim was probably thinking," Pilon said.

The ruling in the shooting came almost three months to the day after Barbara Stewart was shot and killed by Biddeford police on a sidewalk outside the apartment building.

Mills said that Greene "reasonably believed that unlawful deadly force was being imminently threatened against him by Ms. Stewart, and that other officers in the immediate vicinity were imminently threatened with death or serious bodily injury."

The attorney general's investigation, which was conducted independently of an internal Biddeford police investigation, also mentions the suicide note.

"The note was hastily written on a spiral notebook dated March 24," said Brian MacMaster, director of investigations for the attorney general. "There were a couple of short personal messages to her children in the note."

According to the AG report, Barbara Stewart placed a 911 call at 7:18 p.m. on March 24 and told the dispatcher, "I'm gonna kill myself or somebody else and I have a gun."

Greene and two other officers arrived and met Stewart on a sidewalk outside the apartment building. A video camera in Officer Benjamin Sholl's cruiser recorded the events.

As Greene approached Stewart, she reached into her clothing and displayed what officers described as a semiautomatic handgun. Stewart pointed the gun at Greene.

The officers retreated, but Stewart advanced on Greene while ignoring several commands to drop the gun, Mills said. When Stewart was about 10 feet from Greene, he asked her whether the pistol was real, and she replied, "It's ready."

The first round from Greene's .45-caliber handgun hit Stewart in the left shoulder. She fell to the ground, then got up and pointed the pellet gun at Greene again, the report says. Greene fired two more rounds. One missed, but the second struck Stewart in the chest. She died at a local hospital.

An internal Biddeford Police Department investigation concluded that Greene followed department procedures and was properly trained, said Police Chief Roger Beaupre. He said Thursday night that Greene was returned to full active duty last month.

Beaupre said the internal review concluded that the use of a Taser would not have been appropriate. The chief is considering purchasing Tasers for his department with federal stimulus funds.

The review by the attorney general does not investigate civil liability or take into consideration whether the use of deadly force was avoidable.

Pilon, who said he went to Jim Stewart's home Thursday night to comfort Stewart's wife, Janice, said the death of Barbara Stewart haunted his friend. At one point, he said, Jim Stewart...