"Are you looking in my brain?" the suspect, a 6'4" man with brown hair and blue eyes, asks. It is almost 10:30 p.m. on November 24, 2004.
The room is completely dark. A police officer is examining a man suspected of driving under the influence. The cop shines a flashlight in the suspect's eyes, checking the reactivity of his pupils. The results indicate that the suspect is on some kind of drug; he later admits to having taken large doses of cough syrup.
Lights back on, the officer administers a simple walk-and-turn (WAT) test. The suspect fails to follow almost all the directions, muttering about ninjas all the while.
Suddenly the suspect stands on one foot and lifts his arms in the air. He remains in this position for many seconds, trying to imitate a stance in the film Karate Kid.
After failing the WAT miserably, the suspect asks the cop a question: "Do I qualify as a ninja?"
The suspect is Erik D. Tillotson. He is not a ninja; he is a criminal.
Tillotson was born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1971. He was first arrested when he was 23 years old on charges of "acquiring drugs by deception" and was fined $200 for the violation of the law. Maine State Bureau of Identification records show no other arrests until 10 years later.
According to Lieutenant Kevin Schofield of the Brunswick Police Department, Tillotson has become quite familiar to police in the last 10 months.
"We became familiar with Tillotson in early November of 2004; the first time we came in contact with him was when a female victim, a Bowdoin College student, reported some issues that were sexual in nature and required some police follow-up. As a result of that investigation he was charged with 'violation of privacy,' which is a class D misdemeanor. The case is still pending and has not yet been adjudicated."
Tillotson's 'violation of privacy' involved the administration of an "unknown debilitating substance," according to a Bowdoin College Security alert last year. A trespass warning was issued against Tillotson by the College. His violation of the warning resulted in his arrest late last year.
After Tillotson's "violation of privacy' on November 07, 2004, he was arrested for "stalking," "terrorizing," and "criminal trespass" a week later. Four days after that, on November 18, Tillotson was arrested and charged with "criminal trespass" again. The same day he was also charged with "violating the conditions of [his] release."
On November 24, 2004, when Erik Tillotson was brought into the Brunswick Police station, arrested for suspicion of driving high on cough syrup and for violating his bail conditions, the evaluating officer, Paul Hansen II, asked if Erik was sick or injured.
According to Hansen, Tillotson "just stared at me blankly before stating, 'I'm psychotic.'" That night he failed almost every drug influence evaluation test administered to him. Despite a seemingly overwhelming amount of evidence against him, the 'operating under the influence charge' (OUI) was dropped. Assistant District Attorney for Cumberland County Katherine Tierney refused to comment on the rationale of dropping the OUI charge against Tillotson or any case relating to Tillotson.
Earlier this year, Tillotson was charged with a violation of Brunswick municipal fire code.
Numerous trespass warnings have been issued against him recently. According to Schofield, "There are 16 different places in the community where we were asked...to give him a trespass warning. ... It seems that the way he engages other [people]...causes alarm."
In a dark room, Hansen shines a flashlight in Tillotson's eyes, checking his pupils.
"The star is fading away," Tillotson says. "I'm fading away."
All information for this article was obtained from Court records and an interview with Lt. Schofield.