Maine can be a strange state. A recent case and point: State Representative Fred Wintle. The 58-year-old Republican has been charged with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and carrying a concealed weapon after pulling a handgun on an "innocent bystander" who happened to be a photographer for The Morning Sentinel, a Maine newspaper.
The bizarre incident began in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot in Waterville, Maine. Wintle began asking Michael Seamans questions about an infant who died the previous week at an area homeless shelter. He told Seamans that he was looking for the drug dealer of the baby's mother. After that, he suddenly pulled a gun from the waistband of his pants and aimed it at Seamans' stomach. At the time of the incident, Seamans was not carrying press credentials or wearing a camera. He recently joined the newspaper and was not familiar with the key political players in the state government. Seamans backed away from the man and called the police. When Wintle's wife came out of the Dunkin Donuts with her coffee, he had put the gun away.
“[Seamans] certainly did nothing wrong and certainly did his best to try to defuse the potential harm to himself," Sgt. Alan Main with the Waterville Police Department told the Portland Press Herald.
Political leaders revoked Wintle's electronic access to the statehouse after the incident. Staff members say they began noticing increasingly erratic behavior in Wintle, but the representative told them "everything's fine."
Wonder what Wintle thinks about the state's nude coffee shop?
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