[T]UNBRIDGE โ The 39-year-old Bethel-area man shot and killed by police during an armed standoff over the weekend was a suspect in a series of suspicious fires in Tunbridge, Vermont State Police said on Monday.
Jeremy Potwin was wanted for questioning in connection with a fire that destroyed a vacant home and garage at nearby 908 Gage Road, and in two other fires last month in Tunbridge, police said in a news release on Monday.
โThe investigation is ongoing into the arsons and Mr. Potwinโs potential link,โ the release said.
Meanwhile, Vermont State Police have released the names of the two troopers who shot at Potwin on Saturday night at a home at 920 Gage Road.
Vermont State Police Sgt. Matthew Tarricone, of the St. Johnsbury Barracks, and Trooper Neil Carey, who is assigned to headquarters and special investigations, fired their patrol rifles.
Itโs unclear at this point which officer fired the fatal shot. Potwin had emerged from the home around 8 p.m. on Saturday brandishing two guns and holding a female acquaintance hostage, according to Vermont State Police.
The number of times the troopers fired their weapons at Potwin and just how many times he was struck remain under investigation.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was slated to perform an autopsy on Monday; the results werenโt immediately available.
Members of the Vermont State Police Crime Scene Search Team continued to canvas the Gage Road property on Monday. At least a dozen officers were on scene.
Ben and Jen Snelling, who live nearby on Gage Road, said it was a โscaryโ scene on Saturday. Dozens of troopers flocked to the area and some walked up and down the roadway with firearms, they said.
โThe cops just kept coming,โ Jen Snelling said. โI didnโt think it was going to end.โ
The situation was out of character for the rural neighborhood, she said.
โItโs really quiet up here,โ she said, though the Snellings noted there has been a lot of traffic over the past several months between Potwinโs home at 896 Gage Road and the home where he was shot and killed.
Gage Road, also sometimes known as Gage Hill Road, is a dirt road that is accessed off Route 14 in East Bethel. Some homes on the road are in Bethel, while others are in Royalton and Tunbridge. The home where police shot Potwin was in Tunbridge, while Potwinโs home is in Royalton, according to town records.
At the time of the shooting, Potwin had two warrants out for his arrest and was a suspect in an assault and kidnapping last week in Braintree, Vt. In that incident, he was accused of assaulting a man and firing a gun, police said.
He also was wanted for questioning in connection with a car chase involving police in the White River Valley on May 3. Vermont State Police Capt. Dan Trudeau said on Monday that he didnโt have details readily available about just what that chase entailed.
The arrest warrants alleged Potwin violated his conditions of release stemming from his conviction in a fatal car crash in South Royalton in 2017 and escape from Probation & Parole, police said.
He received a suspended sentence in the crash case, and Windsor County Stateโs Attorney David Cahill said on Monday he remained hopeful at the time that Potwin would turn his life around.
Police had been searching for Potwin since last week, and on Saturday put out a news release alerting the public about a โpotentially dangerousโ individual and asking for help in locating him.
Authorities found Potwin at the home at 920 Gage Road, which is only a few houses away from his own. The state police Tactical Services Unit and crisis negotiators tried to get Potwin to surrender, but he fired โmultiple shots out of the home,โ police said.
After several hours, Potwin emerged โcarrying two handguns,โ a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol, and holding a woman hostage, according to police. He then pointed his gun toward police, at which point he was shot and killed, according to authorities.
Meanwhile, many people in the community have been on edge after learning about a string of fires in Tunbridge, which took place between April 14 and April 25.
The first suspicious fire started around 11:30 p.m. on April 14 and involved an abandoned vehicle in the middle of the roadway near the intersection of Falls Hill Road and Howe Lane, which sits off Route 110 near the center of town. Then in the early morning hours of April 23, police responded to the fire at 908 Gage Road and found a blaze leveled a home and garage, estimated at $250,000, which were owned by the estate of Alice Smith, who died recently.
Two days later on April 25, police responded to Mark and Sonja Barterโs residence on Kelsey Mountain Road, which also is off Route 14, to find someone set a vehicle on fire in the driveway. Sonja Barter said her family has been living in fear ever since that day.
โIt makes me sick to my stomach,โ Barter said. โI want answers.โ
Potwin pleaded guilty in January 2018 to negligent operation, leaving the scene of an accident and driving with a suspended license in a crash that killed James Arbuckle, his childhood friend. He received three to eight years, all suspended, upon the condition that he serve 180 days on 24-hour home confinement and 60 days on a work crew.
Cahill, the Windsor County Stateโs Attorney, said on Monday that he had hoped the sentence would encourage Potwin to โchange his ways and become a contributing member of society.โ
โAlthough we hoped for that outcome, we were not so naive as (to) expect it,โ Cahill said. โRather, we expected him to violate his probation and serve his underlying three- to eight-year sentence in prison. It turns out neither our hope for nor expectation of Mr. Potwin came to fruition.โ
Potwin also drew police scrutiny in Lebanon in January 2017 when he punched a man on the Interstate 89 Exit 20 off-ramp, causing the man to fall onto the roadway and get hit by a tractor trailer. The man had serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Potwinโs death marks the fourth officer-involved shooting in Vermont this year; there were a total of four police shootings in all of 2018.
A trooper shot and grazed an armed 19-year-old Quechee man on May 5 in Hartford following a domestic dispute in which he allegedly fired a shotgun at a house. That shooting remains under review.
Vermont State Police also shot and injured a man in Arlington in January, and shot and injured a man in Rockingham in March. Both of those were ruled justified by the Attorney Generalโs Office.
Once the Vermont State Police Major Crime Unit completes its investigation into the Potwin shooting, it will forward its report to the Attorney Generalโs Office and the Orange County Stateโs Attorneyโs Office for independent reviews, Trudeau said.
