PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — An altercation over a parking spot Saturday afternoon at the Presque Isle Walmart Supercenter quickly escalated when several witnesses told police they believed one man involved had a gun.
It turned out no gun was involved, but not before members of multiple state and municipal law enforcement agencies responded to the incident, in which Wesley Rankin, 66, of Caribou, was arrested and charged with criminal threatening.
Police cannot take any situation for granted when there is a possibility of a gun being involved, Presque Isle Police Chief Matthew Irwin said Monday.
“I realize to the public our response looked like it was a big deal [and] it could have been,” he said.
The Presque Isle Police Department received several calls just before 12:30 p.m. Saturday indicating that a man police later identified as Rankin was threatening people with a gun in the Walmart parking lot, according to a report filed by Presque Isle policeman Kyle White.
The incident began, according to White, when Rankin allegedly threatened a couple and their 8-year-old child, who had pulled into a parking spot he wanted in the Walmart parking lot.
Several witnesses, including members of that family, told White that Rankin swore at them, “lurched” his vehicle in their direction and unzipped his jacket to indicate he had a gun, repeating several times he was a military veteran and could “level them.”
No one actually saw a gun, according to White, but the witnesses believed he was concealing one under his coat when he walked away from them and went into the Walmart.
White said he and Presque Isle Detective William Scull entered the Walmart, where they were subsequently joined by officers from the Maine State Police, the Maine Warden Service and an off-duty Caribou policeman who helped secure the entrance.
Scull soon located Rankin in the store and arrested and charged him without incident.
Rankin told White that the woman driving the vehicle who took the spot he wanted tried to run him over and “got in his face.”
Rankin told White he did tell the couple he was a military veteran and it looked to him like her husband was going to fight him, so he began to unzip his jacket to take it off.
Rankin also told White he was reaching into his jacket, but only to get his cellphone.
On Monday Irwin said all law enforcement involved did a very good job in responding and handling the incident.
“They got there, they went in and they found the guy,” he said. “They did this without any further incident.”
Rankin was taken to the Presque Isle Police Station, where he was able to post his $500 bail. He has a March 18 court date in Presque Isle District Court and he has been ordered not to return to Walmart.
