Kittery officers to join Cops on Top event

KITTERY, Maine — Members of the Kittery Police Department on Saturday will join two dozen other police officers and their family members throughout the state to climb Maine’s highest peak, Mount Katahdin, as part of the national “Cops on Top” Summit for Heroes event.

Cops on Top is a team of volunteers from the law enforcement and public safety community, who undertake mountain climbing expeditions to honor the memories of those heroes who have lost their lives in the line of duty protecting others.

This year’s Maine Summit for Heroes event will be dedicated to the memory of Fryeburg, Maine, police officer Nathan Desjardins, who lost his life in the line of duty May 27 while attempting to save 38-year-old Jennifer Bousquet of South Berwick, who drowned that day in the Saco River.  

The 20-year-old Desjardins was a passenger in a police boat responding to a report of a capsized canoe when it hit a submerged object near shore. Desjardins and police officer Dale Stout, 51, who was operating the rescue boat when it struck the object, were thrown from the boat.

Desjardins sustained a severe head injury and died at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Stout, who is also a Biddeford firefighter, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Bousquet’s body was found four days later, about 350 feet from where her canoe overturned. Two men in the canoe with her made it shore.

The idea to bring Cops on Top to Maine was spawned by Kittery Police Chief Jim Soucy, who has participated in this event many times in the past while he worked in New Hampshire. Soucy retired from the Manchester, New Hampshire, Police Department last spring before being sworn in as Kittery’s new chief and said he felt so strongly about Cops on Top he knew he wanted to start it in Maine. Soucy said he hopes to make Cops on Top an annual event in Maine.

Participants of the event will include police officers from the departments of Kittery, York, Scarborough, Westbrook, Augusta, Orono and the University of Maine, in addition to members of Maine’s Drug Enforcement Agency. The climb will include an ascent of Katahdin’s Baxter Peak, where the group will pause for a moment of remembrance and reflection and a group photo with a poster of Desjardins. The group will then traverse Katahdin’s narrow Knife Edge to Pamola Peak, before descending the Helon Taylor Trail.