AUBURN – State police released few details Monday on the shooting death of Jean Fournier of Turner in the parking lot at Walmart on Saturday evening.
Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said police are continuing to interview witnesses and that “nothing has changed” as of late Monday night.
Jean Fournier, 41, of Turner died Saturday night after being shot in the parking lot of the Walmart in Auburn. The shooter has not yet been identified by police.
McCausland said no one has yet been charged in the shooting.
Witnesses recounted a chaotic scene after an argument between two men turned violent, leaving Fournier, 41, dead after being shot twice in the back in a possible case of road rage.
Good Samaritans and then emergency personnel all attempted to resuscitate Fournier, but he died at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
Brenda Akers of Lewiston, who heard shots fired, had been trained as a medic in the Army and rushed to help Fournier at the same time another man ran over to help. She told the Sun Journal that while they were both down on the pavement with Fournier, she heard the shooter say he’d shot Fournier. She asked him why, and he said “because he came up behind my car.”
He stood there, she said “and justified it.”
And, she said, “there was no warning. Nothing.”
Other witnesses who spoke with the Sun Journal at the scene, just after 7 p.m. Saturday, said the two men got into an argument and then a fistfight before Fournier was shot.
Witnesses also said the shooter called the woman who was with Fournier’s a name, which may have spurred the conflict.
When the fight broke up, Fournier had started to walk away when the shooter pulled out a gun and shot him, witnesses said.
After the shooting, the shooter stayed at the scene, telling witnesses he shot in self-defense. He was detained by Auburn police for questioning and was released later that night, McCausland said.
Police also took possession of the shooter’s car, moving it to the State Police Crime Lab in Augusta, according to McCausland.
Police remained at the scene for hours, gathering evidence and talking with witnesses.
According to one witness, a woman who was with Fournier was interviewed by police and her shirt was taken as evidence, leaving the woman standing in the parking lot wearing a bikini. A passerby noticed her and went into the store and bought a dress for her to cover up while she stood with a group of people watching police at work.
The name of an alleged shooter was shared numerous times by witnesses and others on social media over the weekend and on Monday, but the man has not been charged or identified by police as the shooter.
Police investigate in the Auburn Walmart parking lot Saturday night where a suspected road rage incident resulted in the shooting death of a Turner man. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
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