Brewer Police Chief Christopher Martin discussed Maine Wire Reporter Joe Sokol’s reporting on a three-year-old child who was stuck with a needle, criticized syringe service programs (SSP) that hand out needles, and highlighted problems with serious criminals simply being released.
[RELATED: Maine’s Needle Exchanges, Designed to Limit HIV, Instead Gave Rise to Worst-Ever Outbreak…]
“We need to make this park safe. One person being poked, one kid, is one too many. It shouldn’t happen. Needles in our parks—it shouldn’t happen. It does; it can, but it shouldn’t. I don’t want to turn this into an acceptable thing in Brewer,” said Chief Martin.
Martin appeared on the Q-Point podcast on Saturday to discuss the needle incident and other serious issues facing the community.
The Maine Wire first reported that the child had been stabbed with a needle in Brewer’s Riverwalk on July 30, when the concerned father reached out.
The child was rushed to the hospital for testing, and Sokol was able to recover the syringe and bring it to the hospital to aid in the testing. Doctors said that it was likely that the child had not contracted anything from the syringe. The child will receive further testing to confirm that in the coming months.
During the interview, Martin revealed that he reached out to The Maine Wire after Sokol’s reporting to get details on the incident.
After receiving the details, Martin organized the city’s first responders to clean up the Riverwalk, and said that they found a total of three syringes, one crack pipe, and one needle cap.
He put some of the blame for the problem on the SSPs operating in neighboring Bangor, which hand out syringes to drug users.
“The people who are using them are mobile; they walk around and they go places, so it’s not just going to stay in the area where it’s passed out,” he added.
According to Martin, needles handed out by the SSPs also end up in the Penobscot River, where they pollute the water and wash into other towns downriver.
During the podcast, they also discussed the case of Devin Anderson, 35, a homeless man originally from Oregon, who was arrested for allegedly slamming a female officer’s head into the ground in 2025. He was subsequently released before being arrested again in May after allegedly breaking into a woman’s car while rubbing his genitals and grabbing her arm.
Martin explained that the man was released after, for reasons he could not determine, no attorney could be found, even among public defenders, to defend him.
He blamed the situation on the soft-on-crime policies enacted by state lawmakers.
“I think you can blame the legislature. They passed the bail reform,” said Martin. “What do you care if you’re out getting in trouble every day and you walk around with 15 sets of bail conditions? What’s the difference between 15 sets and 25 sets, and each set you get means that you committed new crimes while out on bail.”
He pointed out that bail violations used to mean a person was locked up, but that now, thanks to bail reform, criminals are simply released again.
Martin claimed that the police and prosecutors are blamed for problems caused by the state’s policies and problems with the public defender’s office.
When asked why so many homeless people are coming to Maine from out of state, Martin said that people had been drawn by the services Maine and the Bangor area offer for homeless people.
“Word is getting out not just throughout the state of Maine but throughout the country that if you come here, there’s stuff for you,” said Martin.
He called for Bangor to take a more practical approach to homelessness and simply look at what has and has not worked in the past rather than chasing the “next best thing” despite the consistent failures of the “housing first” model.
The “housing first” model is the rationale behind low-barrier shelters, such as the controversial Yellen Pines project in Bangor, that allow active drug users to continue shooting up while being sheltered.
The “ Justice System “ ….brought to you today by Maine Democrats .
The same democrats who asking you to be elected in November .
Choose Wisely .
Stop making drug addiction and breaking the law easier. It hurts everyone you stupid bastards.