A recorded visit to Maine DHHS shows what happened before police arrived, what witnesses told the responding officer, and how an OCFS supervisor later characterized the encounter

The Maine Mirror | August 12, 2026

There are stories where the truth depends almost entirely on competing memories.

This isn’t one of them.

My visit to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services office in Biddeford was recorded.

The recording began before there was any confrontation. It captured my initial conversation with the building manager, my subsequent interaction with Jean Haynes in the lobby, and continued after I left the building.

Separately obtained police footage documents what happened when Biddeford Police Officer Shortill responded.

Together, those recordings provide something far more valuable than competing recollections: a chronological primary-source record of what happened, followed by what law enforcement was told had happened.

That distinction is the subject of this story.

(EMBEDDED VIDEO — PRIMARY-SOURCE RECORDINGS: Full chronological video presentation accompanying this article, incorporating the original recorded visit and responding officer’s body-camera footage. The video allows viewers to hear the conversations described below and compare the encounter itself with the subsequent accounts provided to Officer Shortill.)

The purpose here is not to tell readers how to characterize my tone, persistence, frustration, or conduct.

The recordings exist.

Listen to them.

The question is whether the descriptions subsequently supplied to law enforcement accurately reflect what those recordings capture.

Before Police Were Ever Called

The encounter began with a private conversation between me and the building manager of the Biddeford DHHS building.

I was seeking an explanation for why I had previously been issued a no-trespass order at the Sanford CPS office and was attempting to speak with District Director Nate Oliver.

The building manager told me that people were unavailable because they had been in meetings. She said that, as far as she knew, Oliver was in a large meeting for the day.

She also told me she did not know who I was.

I explained why I was there, why I was seeking Oliver and why I wanted an explanation concerning the Sanford no-trespass order.

My request was straightforward: if Oliver couldn’t speak with me then, I wanted a time, date or other means of speaking with him.

The building manager explained that she dealt more with the MaineCare side of DHHS and didn’t know much about the child-welfare situation.

Then she made a statement that becomes important when considering what happened afterward:

“Listen, I don’t wanna get involved in your stuff because then they’ll yell at me for it.”

Who was “they”?

Why did she believe she would be yelled at?

The recording doesn’t answer those questions, so this article won’t pretend that it does.

What it establishes is what she actually said.

This occurred before Officer Shortill arrived and before the confrontation with Jean Haynes.

The building manager’s stated concern at that moment wasn’t that I had threatened her. She didn’t tell me she was afraid of me.

She said she didn’t want to become involved because “they’ll yell at me for it.”

Following that conversation, I returned to the waiting area.

Then Jean Haynes came out.

The Encounter With Jean Haynes

Haynes approached me in the lobby and immediately told me I needed to leave.

I asked why.

She said nobody was available to meet with me.

I asked who could meet with me.

The conversation moved quickly:

Haynes: “You need to leave.”

Michaels: “Oh, but you started this conversation here. Okay. So let’s finish it. I’m asking for help. Why are you calling the police on me?”

Haynes: “Because you’re not leaving.”

Within approximately 30 seconds of approaching me, Haynes had called for police.

But the recording captures considerably more than the statement that I wasn’t leaving.

It captures what I was asking.

“No one can be available to meet with me, so I’m asking when can they?”

And:

“You’re telling me that no one can ever help me, ever? I’m asking to talk to someone.”

Eventually, Haynes confirmed that she understood I wanted to speak with Nate Oliver about a child-welfare matter.

She then told me:

“He’s not gonna meet with you.”

My response:

“He’s never gonna meet with me. Why? I want an answer.”

Those five words matter:

“Why? I want an answer.”

Because demanding an explanation would later become part of Amy Cilley’s description of me to law enforcement.

The recording also documents how the encounter ended.

I said:

“I’m gonna leave right now.”

Then:

“I’m going to leave right now.”

And I left.

My final recorded words inside the building were:

“Thank you again, sir. And sorry, everyone. I appreciate it.”

By the time Officer Shortill arrived, the confrontation was over.

He hadn’t witnessed it.

Others had.

An Independent Witness Speaks

One of the first important accounts captured after Officer Shortill’s arrival came from a citizen bystander who had witnessed the interaction with Haynes.

She explained what she had just observed:

“He talked to somebody and they told him that there was nobody that was gonna talk to him today or any day…”

She continued:

“Obviously he got upset.”

Then:

“I would have too.”

Officer Shortill responded:

“That’s fair.”

That wasn’t my retrospective explanation.

It wasn’t an advocate speaking on my behalf.

It was a person who had witnessed the encounter explaining its immediate context to the officer who arrived afterward.

And Shortill’s response was:

“That’s fair.”

The Building Manager Speaks to Police

Officer Shortill then spoke with the building manager.

This was the same person who had already spent considerable time speaking privately with me before police were called.

The same person who had heard why I was there.

The same person who had heard me explain the Sanford no-trespass issue.

And the same person who had previously told me:

“I don’t wanna get involved in your stuff because then they’ll yell at me for it.”

Yet her subsequent conversation with Officer Shortill did not include those details.

Instead, she told the officer:

“I don’t know what his story is.”

When discussing my identity, she could not initially provide my name accurately.

Then Officer Shortill asked what I looked like.

Her response was remarkable considering what would soon be said about me:

“Um, kinda harmless.”

She continued:

“He got tattoos on him, light facial hair, brown hair.”

The phrase is worth remembering:

“Kinda harmless.”

Because another DHHS official was about to give Officer Shortill a dramatically different account.

Amy Cilley Approaches Officer Shortill

OCFS Regional Supervisor Amy Cilley approached Officer Shortill and took him into a private room.

There, she provided her account of what she called the situation involving me.

Cilley told Shortill:

“We don’t have an open case with him. Um, and he refused to leave the building.”

She continued:

“the associate director went out and had to talk to him for quite a few minutes, and he was pretty escalated…”

And:

“demanding that we meet with him, demanding that he be helped.”

Compare those statements with the primary-source recording.

The recording captures the entire exchange with Haynes.

It captures me questioning why I was being required to leave.

It captures me asking when someone would speak with me.

It captures me asking why Oliver would not meet with me.

It captures:

“Why? I want an answer.”

And it captures me explicitly announcing that I was leaving—twice—before doing exactly that.

Cilley then expanded her account beyond what happened in the lobby.

She told Officer Shortill:

“he calls here probably 100 times a day.”

And:

“He, he also threatens them.”

“Probably 100 times a day” is not an insignificant allegation.

It is also the kind of allegation capable of being objectively tested against telephone records.

The allegation that I “threaten” law enforcement or DHHS personnel is more serious still.

But Cilley then pointed Officer Shortill toward what she presented as evidence of threatening behavior:

A Facebook post.

“I’m Coming for You”

Cilley told Officer Shortill that the earlier Sanford no-trespass order resulted from a social-media post in which I named government employees and wrote:

“I’m coming for you.”

Those words appear in the post.

But they aren’t the complete statement.

Cilley told Shortill the post:

“came across as very much like, ‘Watch out, I’m coming for you. Watch your back,’ kind of thing.”

Now look at the actual post.

(IMAGE 1 — THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL FACEBOOK POST: Full archived screenshot of Ryan Michaels’ original post. Readers can see the entire statement in context, including the language about karma, justice and accountability, followed by the complete sentence: “Im coming for you…legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully.” The image also shows the concluding statement: “I’m coming for you maddox and maverick. And I will never give up.”)

The post is forceful.

It names people and institutions.

It says:

“I know karma’s coming. I know justice is coming.”

It says:

“All of you will answer for your abuse of power and absolute negligence to the duties you were sworn to uphold.”

And then comes the sentence Cilley referenced:

“Im coming for you…legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully.”

The next paragraph states:

“You will face accountability. And I will be heard.”

The words “Watch your back” do not appear in the post.

Those were Cilley’s words describing what she believed the post conveyed.

That distinction matters.

An official can certainly interpret a statement as threatening.

But an interpretation and a quotation are not the same thing.

And when that interpretation is being communicated to a police officer while government officials are seeking another no-trespass order, the distinction becomes particularly important.

Then there is the version of the post DHHS itself submitted.

The Version DHHS Used

Compare the complete original with the image submitted by DHHS as justification for the no-trespass action.

(IMAGE 2 — VERSION SUBMITTED BY DHHS: Screenshot presented by DHHS showing the same Facebook post, but ending at the bottom immediately after the words “Im coming for.” The continuation visible in the complete original—“you…legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully”—does not appear within the submitted image. Place this immediately after Image 1, ideally followed by a side-by-side comparison.)

Look at where the submitted screenshot ends:

“Im coming for”

And then the image stops.

What follows in the original?

“you…legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully.”

The two images alone cannot establish why the submitted version ends where it does.

They cannot establish who determined its framing or whether excluding the remainder was intentional.

But they establish something that doesn’t require speculation:

The version submitted by DHHS does not show the completion of the sentence.

And the omitted portion contains words directly relevant to determining what the sentence means.

Cilley supplied Officer Shortill with the interpretation:

“Watch your back.”

The original supplied the actual words:

“legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully.”

Readers can decide for themselves what the complete post means.

But they should be allowed to see the complete post before making that judgment.

“He Doesn’t Appear to Be in Touch With Reality”

Then Cilley’s conversation with Officer Shortill moved beyond allegations about my conduct.

It moved into assertions about my mental state.

Her exact words were:

“He’s very escalated in that, um, he doesn’t appear to be in touch with reality right now.”

She continued:

“Demands, um, explanation and understanding.”

Then:

“even if you try to explain it to him in a very logical way, he, it, he just can’t process it.”

And:

“He’s, uh, he’s not well.”

Cilley then speculated:

“I just wonder if there’s something, um, going on for him mentally that’s leading to this escalation of behavior.”

Those are extraordinary statements for a government official to make about a citizen to a police officer.

But one phrase deserves particular attention:

“Demands, um, explanation and understanding.”

Yes.

I demanded an explanation.

The recording establishes that.

I wanted to know why I had been no-trespassed.

I wanted to know who could answer my questions.

I wanted to know when Nate Oliver would speak with me.

When Haynes told me he wouldn’t, I asked why.

I wanted an explanation and understanding.

The question raised by this evidence is not whether I sought those things.

It is how seeking them became part of a conversation in which a government supervisor told a police officer that I didn’t appear to be “in touch with reality.”

Put the Accounts Side by Side

Forget anybody’s interpretation for a moment.

Just examine the chronology.

Before police are called: the building manager speaks privately with me, hears why I’m there, and tells me she doesn’t want to become involved because:

“they’ll yell at me for it.”

Jean Haynes approaches me: within approximately 30 seconds, police are called. I seek an explanation, question why nobody will speak with me, state twice that I’m leaving, and leave.

Officer Shortill arrives afterward: a citizen who witnessed what happened explains why I became upset and says:

“I would have too.”

Shortill responds:

“That’s fair.”

The building manager speaks with Shortill: she describes me as:

“kinda harmless.”

Amy Cilley then speaks privately with Shortill: she says I:

“refused to leave.”

Called:

“probably 100 times a day.”

Allegedly:

“threatens them.”

And:

“doesn’t appear to be in touch with reality right now.”

She describes my Facebook post using:

“Watch your back.”

But those words aren’t in the post.

And when DHHS submitted an image of that post as justification, the image ended immediately after:

“Im coming for”

without displaying:

“you…legally…civilly…kindly…empathetically….and truthfully.”

These aren’t minor differences in wording.

They are differences readers should examine for themselves.

Why This Matters Beyond One Encounter

Government employees possess institutional authority.

When they speak to law enforcement, their words carry weight.

Descriptions like “threatening,” “refused to leave,” “not well,” and “out of touch with reality” can fundamentally change how a police officer perceives the person being described.

They can become part of official records.

They can influence decisions about trespass orders.

And once an institutional narrative exists, future interactions risk being interpreted through that narrative rather than evaluated independently.

That is precisely why this case deserves scrutiny.

Not because readers should simply accept my account.

They shouldn’t have to.

The primary sources exist.

The accompanying video allows viewers to hear my private conversation with the building manager.

Hear what she said before police were called.

Hear Jean Haynes approach me.

Hear what I actually asked.

Hear how the encounter actually ended.

Hear the independent bystander.

Hear Officer Shortill respond, “That’s fair.”

Hear the building manager call me “kinda harmless.”

Then hear Amy Cilley’s account.

And when Cilley discusses my Facebook post, stop the video and examine the two images yourself.

One shows the complete statement.

The other shows what DHHS submitted.

This isn’t a request to take my word over theirs.

It’s a request to do something much simpler:

Compare everyone’s words against the record.

Then ask:

Does the characterization ultimately given to law enforcement fairly represent what the primary-source evidence shows actually happened?

And perhaps more importantly:

When a citizen demands “explanation and understanding” from a government institution, what evidence should be required before a government official turns that conduct into an assertion to police that the citizen is “out of touch with reality”?

You don’t have to guess.

The recordings exist.

The documents exist.

Watch them.

Listen to them.

Compare them.

Then decide for yourself.