STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — A Searsport man has been charged in connection with a brawl on Damon Road last month that resulted in the stabbing of one of the participants.
Richard Gainer, 23, has been charged with elevated aggravated assault for the Sunday, July 19, attack on Kirt Damon Sr., 44, of Damon Road.
During the fight, another one of Damon’s attackers, Ricky K. Pomeroy, 46, of Cape Jellison, was stabbed in the back by Damon’s 18-year old son, Adam. Adam Damon was not charged for stabbing Pomeroy.
“His dad was getting the stuffing beat out of him with clubs and iron pipes,” Assistant District Attorney Eric Walker said Thursday of his decision not to charge the younger Damon. “Right now, I don’t see that happening, being that it was self-defense or coming to the aid of a third party.”
Adam Damon told police he feared for his father’s life after Pomeroy knocked the elder Damon down and a group of men, including Gainer, began striking him with clubs and stomping him while he was down on the ground.
Pomeroy received a deep laceration to his back as a result of the stabbing and was taken by helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor for treatment of his wound.
In an affidavit filed with the arrest warrant for Gainer, Waldo County Sheriff’s Detective Jason Bosco stated that when he interviewed Pomeroy at the hospital he was told that the Pomeroys and Damons were related and that they had been feuding among themselves for 25 years.
Pomeroy told Bosco that the fight stemmed from an altercation in Swanville a few weeks earlier when Brad Pomeroy and Craig Talgo “beat up” Kirt Damon Jr., 19, and Adam Damon. After that fight, Pomeroy told Bosco, the Damons started calling a family member and telling her they “were going to kill all Pomeroys” and that they “wanted their payback.”
The affidavit revealed that Bosco and other investigators interviewed more than a dozen people who either participated in or witnessed the July 19 melee.
Those who accompanied Pomeroy to the Damons’ property denied that they were armed with clubs, pipes and knives and claimed that the weaponry was produced by the Damons. Those who rushed to Damon Sr.’s aid, as well as some of the witnesses, said the opposite.
All of the participants agreed that the day escalated into a fight after the four Damons went to the Searsport home of Audrey Pomeroy and spoke to Gainer. While Gainer claimed that Rodney Damon, 27, a cousin of Adam and Kirt Jr., knocked him around and punched holes in the trailer’s door, Adam Damon said Gainer and Rodney Damon just “yelled for a bit” before having a beer together.
Adam Damon told Bosco that he and his brother had been fighting with the Pomeroys for years and that “they would fight one day and be friends the next day.” As they got older, he said, “the fights got worse and they wouldn’t be friends the next day.”
Later that evening, the Damons allegedly received a telephone call from the Pomeroys asking them to meet on Chain Road in Stockton Springs to hash matters out. When the Damons failed to appear, Pomeroy Sr. and several others walked to Damon Lane.
Adam Damon told Bosco he observed a group of men in the yard armed with clubs and woke up his father, who had decided to take a nap after having consumed some beer earlier that day. Adam said that when his father ordered the men off his property, they attacked him. Adam said he saw his father fighting with Pomeroy Sr. and that Gainer and two others joined in and began bludgeoning him with clubs and kicking him. Photographs attached to the affidavit depict Damon Sr. with bruises covering most of his back.
Rodney Damon, who was among those who went to help the senior Damon, admitted using a shotgun as a club and breaking it over the back of one of the attackers, Thadeous Macloud, 21.
Adam Damon also told Bosco that “he was afraid they were going to kill his dad” and that he grabbed a knife he saw lying on the ground and swung it at Pomeroy. When he saw that Pomeroy was cut, he ran into the house and called the police. The knife used to stab Pomeroy was never recovered
“Adam said he was afraid that Ricky Sr. was going to die and wanted an ambulance,” Bosco stated. “Adam said that if he didn’t help his dad they would have killed him.”
The incident remains under investigation and additional individuals could face charges, Assistant District Attorney Walker said. Gainer was arrested Wednesday night and is being held at the Waldo County Jail on $1,000 cash bail.