Tyler Fusco with Sam Luebbert at Maine Medical Center on Friday. Luebbert came to Fusco’s aid after he was shot on the causeway in Naples on July 4. Photo courtesy of Shauna Palanza

Deputy Warren Day thought the blasts he heard from across the street were fireworks. Then the screaming began.

More than 1,000 people were waiting to watch the light show from the Naples Causeway on the Fourth of July when a flurry of bullets sent the crowd into a panic and left police scrambling to find the fleeing shooter. It took the better part of two days for officers to track down and arrest Alexzander Goodwin, 19, whom they believe shot 16-year-old Tyler Fusco after the two got into a fistfight.

Alexzander Goodwin. Courtesy Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office

Goodwin, who is facing charges of attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and unlawful trafficking of scheduled drugs, along with several lesser crimes, was scheduled to return to court last Friday for a private settlement conference with attorneys after pleading not guilty to all counts in November.

He faces a maximum sentence of more than 80 years in prison.

He is currently on house arrest at his grandparents’ home, according to court documents. Prosecutors attempted to revoke Goodwin’s bail after deputies discovered a crossbow, a compound bow, arrows and an empty magazine for an AR-15-style rifle during a routine search of the home in September. But a judge denied the motion after Goodwin’s grandfather said the weapons were his.

That decision frustrated Fusco’s mother. She said in an interview last week that her son’s shoulder is healing slower than expected, which has kept him from his loves of football and baseball and sent him into a depression.

But it feels like Goodwin “keeps getting breaks,” Shauna Palanza said. She compared him to Marcel LaGrange, who allegedly killed a Westbrook couple in a random attack last June after displaying threatening behavior throughout his teenage years.

Shauna Palanza stands outside Maine Medical Center in July, where her son was recovering after being shot in Naples on July 4. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer, file

“I don’t want this kid to go to jail for the rest of his life,” Palanza said. “(But) I think this kid’s going to keep doing it because he keeps getting off, and I don’t think our system is doing much to prevent that.”

CHAOS ON THE CAUSEWAY

Fusco, a junior at Westbrook High School, was in Naples on July 4 to visit his grandparents and watch the fireworks. According to the account he later gave police, he was playing basketball with a friend near the town office when he first ran into Goodwin, though he didn’t know his name until after the shooting. Fusco said he saw Goodwin confront his friend and briefly flash a gun. He was wasn’t sure exactly what the argument was about, except that it might have had something to do with Goodwin’s girlfriend.

Fusco left the group to spend time on his grandparents’ boat. He texted his mother a photo of himself from the water shortly before 7 p.m., she told the Press Herald in July.

He was on the boat when the friend he’d played basketball with called and said Goodwin had come back and punched him, Fusco told investigators.

Fusco went back to the causeway, found the group and confronted the teenager near Rick’s Cafe. After Fusco called him a curse word, Goodwin took a swing at him, according to Fusco’s account, which police reports say is largely corroborated by surveillance footage from a nearby restaurant. Fusco said he dodged the punch, then wrestled his opponent to the ground and hit him several times in the head.

Fusco said the fight ended when Goodwin pulled a black handgun from the cross-body bag he was wearing and took aim. Fusco tried to run before three bullets hit him and knocked him to the ground.

The crowd scattered as the many deputies working the event scrambled to the scene. By the time they got there, 26-year-old Sam Luebbert, of Auburn, was already providing first aid to Fusco, who had been hit in the shoulder and grazed in the leg. But the shooter was gone.

TRACKING THE SHOOTER

Dozens of pages of police reports filed in court detail the search for the suspect.

Minutes after the shooting, witnesses told deputies that they’d seen several teens run from the scene. Police found and questioned some nearby kids but determined they weren’t connected to the shooting – they had just run like everyone else.

It didn’t take long to identify Goodwin as their suspect. Deputies discovered an abandoned gun and bag near the Causeway Dairy Bar, located in the same direction witnesses said the shooter had fled. Inside the bag was a bottle of prescription medication bearing Goodwin’s name, according to police reports. Some of the teenagers who investigators interviewed said they had seen Goodwin fire the shots, and others said they’d heard from friends that he was responsible.

Police already knew Goodwin had spent time in the Long Creek Youth Development Center, according to police reports. The specifics of his juvenile offenses remain sealed to the public, but Deputy Hunter Smith wrote in his report that Goodwin was “a drug user/dealer and is known to be violent.”

Officers went to Goodwin’s grandparents’ home in Bridgton. According to police reports, they searched the bedroom where he sometimes stayed and found 9mm handgun ammunition. Goodwin’s grandparents and sister said they hadn’t seen him since that afternoon, but police weren’t convinced – they’d received a tip that Goodwin’s sister may have picked him up and driven him around town after the shooting, and they noticed her passenger seat was reclined all the way back, as if someone had been lying down in it.

The next day, police received a tip from an Auburn woman who said Goodwin was a friend of her son’s and that the boys had spent the night at her home, according to a report from Detective Nate Therriault. Goodwin told the woman that morning that he’d shot someone the night before after getting in a fight where his arm had been “disabled.” She told police that he was “very calm” when he recounted the story.

She also shared Ring doorbell footage with the police. On the tape, Goodwin can be heard telling his friend, “I’m not turning myself in and wasting my summer,” according to Therriault’s report.

Shortly after noon, an Uber ordered under Goodwin’s sister’s name arrived to pick the two men up. The driver later told police that they both fell asleep on their way to Deering Oaks in Portland.

By the next day, police were surveilling three homes: the tipster’s Auburn house, a Portland apartment rented by a friend of Goodwin’s, and Goodwin’s own Portland apartment.

Around 2 p.m. on July 6, a Portland officer spotted Goodwin leaving his apartment and called the county detectives, according to Therriault’s report. Therriault and Detective Tyler Monsees found Goodwin walking near the Portland Expo, pulled their guns and told him to get on the ground. Goodwin, who admitted to having meth on him, surrendered peacefully.