AUBURN — Federal marshals on Wednesday arrested a Lewiston man on firearm charges after a dramatic chase across a couple of rooftops on Main Street.
The U.S. Marshals Service arrested 34-year-old Matthew Gallagher on warrants charging theft of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a felon and criminal threatening with a firearm.
The Maine Department of Corrections also had a warrant for Gallagher on a charge of violating probation.
Agents from the U.S. Marshals Service Violent Offender Task Force had been searching for Gallagher. When they received information that he was hiding out at an apartment on Main Street in Auburn, they enlisted the help of Lewiston and Auburn police in conducting a search of the apartment.
“During the search, Gallagher fled the apartment to the roof of the building, in an attempt to avoid capture,” according to a news release. “Gallagher then jumped to the roof of a building next-door. Authorities observed Gallagher on the roof, and he was ordered to come down. After being surrounded, Gallagher surrendered to law enforcement and descended from the rooftop without incident.”
Gallagher was taken to the Androscoggin County Jail where he was being held without bail.
The charges stem from a shooting on Bartlett Street in 2021.
Gallagher was already familiar to police in Lewiston.
In 2017, he was arrested following a shootout on Horton Street. In that incident, on the morning of July 10, police responded to calls for a shooting behind 84-86 Horton St.
Lewiston Police Detective David Levesque wrote in an affidavit that a witness had spotted two men by a fence behind 90 Horton St. The witness said she saw one of the men shooting a gun in the direction of Howe Street. His position was consistent with .40-caliber shell casings recovered by police, Levesque wrote. The woman picked Gallagher out of a photo lineup.
A source told police Gallagher had been staying on a couch on the first floor of 84 Howe St. with his girlfriend. That source said Gallagher had hidden a handgun in a stuffed frog in that apartment.
A search of the apartment turned up a 9 mm round in a closet, a stolen Lewiston Fire Department two-way radio with Lewiston Police as a primary channel, a large amount of marijuana, scales and other paraphernalia, according to the affidavit.
Several people in the apartment building told police they had seen Gallagher with a handgun recently. He had told them he needed it “for protection.”
He was later picked up on a warrant.
In the affidavit, Levesque wrote that Gallagher had been involved in at least two downtown Lewiston shootings. One of those prior incidents took place behind the Lewiston Public Library at 139 Park St. in April 2017, where he had been shot at by a group of Somali males who had been retaliating for Gallagher having apparently shot at one of them earlier in Kennedy Park. During the shooting behind the library, the vehicle Gallagher had been driving was struck by bullets, Levesque wrote. A stolen Glock was found in that vehicle, he wrote.
