By Paul Sylvain

Just 20 months ago, you could drive through Machias without seeing a town cop or cruiser. In fact, the town’s police department had been decimated by then and existed only on paper. It had no chief, no officers and keeping peace in this town of 2,200 people was left to the sheriff’s department.

That all changed in October 2021, when the town’s selectboard hired veteran cop Keith Mercier as the department’s new chief. The position had been vacant since July that year.

Mercier arrived on the job Nov. 1, 2021, to find the police department closed. “There was no police department,” he said in an interview at his office last week. To make matters worse, Mercier was greeted by a murder in Machias his first week on the job. “It was the shooting they had up on High Street,” he said. “That was kind of a welcome-to-Machias thing.”

Asked what caused the exodus, Mercier replied, “It was before my time. I don’t know why. Guys left for whatever reasons and went elsewhere. The doors were shut.”

However, it was that dire situation that prompted Mercier to apply for the job.

“What drew me here was an opportunity to build a police department,” Mercier said. “That’s what I did when I was in Iraq and Afghanistan for four years. That was my job. I worked building police departments over there.”

Mercier said he was an “Air Force brat”, born on Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. His family “is all from Cape Cod,” he said, so when his father retired from the Air Force in 1970, his parents moved back to the Cape.

However, he has called Maine home for the past four decades.

In a career spanning nearly 39 years, Mercier said most of those years were spent with the Bangor Police Department. He later signed on as a patrol supervisor with the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department, where he spent five years, before taking on the task of training and building police departments in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007.

Mercier admitted it was a challenge rebuilding the Machias Police Department. First up was recruiting police officers.

“I had a great officer sitting there  — Officer (Timothy) Mace — who came back. Mercier said. “He worked here years ago, then went to the sheriff’s department. Sgt. (Wade) Walker came back. He was in Baileyville at the time.”

“In a very short period of time we went from zero to 100,” said Merier. “We are respected in the county. We work awesome with the sheriff’s department. Our reputation in just this short period of time is through the roof. We’re hands-down the best municipal police department in the county.

Machias has a part-time school resource officer (SRO) in the town’s schools. However, Mercier said a grant is pending that would clear the way to hire a full-time SRO.

But, is a uniformed police officer really needed in Machias schools? According to Mercier, yes.

“In a small town? Absolutely, Mercier replied. “In our schools? Absolutely. We’ve had some pretty substantial issues (at the schools). They’ve actually called us and asked for a detail officer to go there, because they had issues that were a little over their pay grade.”

The Machias Police Department is authorized for four full-time officers, which includes the chief’s position. That number is okay for 5 a.m. to midnight coverage, but insufficient to provide 24-hour coverage. 

Mercier hopes to add two more full-time officers in the future, which would allow his department to be on duty 24/7.

The selectboard “has been fantastic in being supportive with training and equipment,” Mercier said. “I mean, when I got here there wasn’t any equipment here. Everything was so outdated, if they even had it. The chief said he focused a lot of attention on getting more modernized and more equipment.

The department “had been neglected for so long,” said Mercier, “we were playing some serious catch-up with training and equipment and getting more modernized, getting up to standards. We’re all caught up and in good shape, now.”

Addressing crime in Machias, Mercier said serious crimes are down, while illegal drugs remain one of the biggest issues his department deals with.

“Drugs, such as fentanyl, heroin, continue to be a problem,” he said. “It seems to be a lot better, now, because of the resources being thrown at the fentanyl and heroin issue, but, we do see that and run into it from time-to-time.”

Asked about his dealings with the five legally licensed medical and adult-use marijuana businesses in Machias, Mercier replied, “It’s not even on our radar.”

The chief said this year he is focussing “on community involvement, community policing, getting community engagement. We try to stay pretty active with the schools.

“Our call rate is through the roof, but in a good way,” he said. “People know we’re here and they call us, even about deer running around in their yard.”

CORRECTION: Previous version of this story misspelled Police Chief’s last name.  We apologize for the error.