BANGOR, Maine — A man is dead after he got into a group fight on First Street early Tuesday morning that involved a stabbing, according to police.
Police arrived at the scene of the fight at about 1:45 a.m. They used yellow police tape to cordon off the area between Cedar and Barker streets to collect evidence and several police markers could be seen on the street in front of two apartment buildings at 69 and 71 First St., most likely indicating where blood was found.
Bangor police Lt. Tom Regan confirmed early Tuesday that the incident involved a stabbing, but police were otherwise tight-lipped about the incident.
“When officers arrived, we did in fact locate one male who was transported to Eastern Maine Medical Center’s emergency room who was later pronounced dead,” Sgt. Paul Edwards, the department’s blood spatter expert, said a few hours after the incident was reported. “Right now we have the criminal investigations division here interviewing, we have our evidence response team collecting evidence and we’re just shutting down First Street for an undetermined amount of time until we can finish that.”
He and a half-dozen other investigators could be seen collecting evidence and talking with people in the area between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.
Police Chief Ron Gastia, Lt. Tim Reid, who leads the department’s criminal investigation division, and other police officials had a meeting in the cordoned-off street at about 8 a.m.
“We’re not releasing any names yet,” Reid said. “We’ll have something before the day’s over.”
The roadway reopened to traffic just after noon, even though the evidence response vehicle and detectives remained at the scene.
A woman who lives next door to the apartment buildings said she heard fighting out on the street “all night long” but didn’t get up until she heard police officers arrive and start talking about someone who might be mortally wounded.
“They had people cuffed up — four or five of them — at the front of the building and there was a girl hiding in the bushes,” said Klarissa Nye, who along with her two young children moved to First Street in the fall. “I saw them take this girl — she had short pink hair and was fighting with them — and put her in the back of the cruiser.”
No one had been arrested by 8 a.m., according to Reid.
“It’s under investigation,” the lieutenant said.
The suspicious death was not the first to occur on the street in recent years. The body of Christine Simonin, 43, was found in March 2007 dumped a block from the First Street apartment she shared with Ashton Moores.
Moores, then 61, was convicted of raping and killing her at their home. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder and a 20-year concurrent sentence for the rape.
On June 24, 2003, Walter Travis, then 26, stabbed and killed Thomas Forni, a friend of his father’s who lived on First Street. Forni died of multiple stab wounds, including a severe laceration of the neck. Travis killed him just after assaulting his teenage brother, James Travis, with a baseball bat at his apartment one block away on Cedar Street.
He was committed to Riverview Psychiatric Center, formerly the Augusta Mental Health Institute, after being found guilty of murder and attempted murder but not responsible for the crimes due to mental illness.
Dana Spencer, Nye’s landlord, said he and his brother have owned the apartment building for 34 years and have watched the area degrade over the decades. He approached Officer Jim Dearing on Tuesday morning and asked if police could remove the hypodermic needles in his front yard that he said drug addicts had carelessly discarded there. Dearing said the needles would be taken as evidence.
“It used to be a nice, quiet neighborhood when I moved in,” Spencer said. “It’s getting bad up here. We’ve had three or four murders since I’ve been here.”
Another neighbor, who lives across the street and asked to be identified only by his first name, Adam, said he often sees people hanging out in front of the apartments in question drinking and openly doing drugs.
Nye said she wants to move but can’t afford to at this point in her life.
“It’s just a really bad area,” she said. “Everybody is on [the synthetic drug] bath salts. I’ve walked out of my house and found needles. It’s really sad.”
No matter whether the people in the fight were drinking and doing illegal drugs, “nobody deserves that,” Nye said. “It’s really unfortunate.”
Spencer took the opportunity to warn people to be cautious when on First Street, which stretches for three blocks between Union Street and Davis Street.
“Watch your back,” the landlord said. “Don’t go out alone at night — go with with a friend.”
Check bangordailynews.com for more updates throughout the day.
Not that I’m an advocate of government interference / regulation, but I believe it is about time for the City to start asking some tough questions about the landlord of these properties. Haven’t we seen enough of these kind of stories about First street?
We have a great well established Management company place our tenants.. They do credit and backgroud checks rental histories. 99.9% of our tenants come and go without a peep from them or us… The rest have to go live somewhere else.. Still with all that, landlords are not responsibile for their adult tenants… What do you want the landlords to do babysit their tenants.. I don’t think so
I don’t want landlords to babysit their tenants, I want them to be much smarter about who they rent to and more accountable for those decisions. I’m tired of hearing Bangor slumlords tell me that they have great management company’s handling their property. The fact of the matter is that the landlord owns the dump and is responsible for it. The other fact is that some of these ‘well established’ management company’s are lousy.
This town needs to shut many of these slums down and put the property owners on notice.
I am not a slumlord nor do I have property in these areas. and I have the best management team in the area placing my tenants… and they are great tenants… no smoking apts, and one of the best leases custom made to protect me and the tenants…
Now if you read my comment correctly you would have read that I said, people who don’t qualify go somewhere else.. All I know is someone rents to them.. Someday the ACLU will come in and make the claim bad credit or background history is a disability and we can’t discriminate…
Davidvsgoliath, I must take issue with your last throwaway insult to people with real disabilities and people who actually DO suffer discrimination.
It really saddens me when people take that attitude. I doubt you care, but there it is.
I have a family with 3 people with disabilities in it. all phyical. they are great tenants and have been with us for 7+ years.. We have no problems at all with them or them with us. (-; so I do not discriminate.
You have a family, who you don’t discriminate against, and that’s
wonderful, BUT, society does discriminate against minorities and people
with hidden disabilities, and the ACLU does some wonderful work, and
would work hard for you if your civil rights were trampled and you could
not rectify that on your own.
However, when someone intelligent such as yourself dismisses the ACLU, disabilities, and discrimination in one sentence, it does a disservice to all three things. You may not agree, but that’s how I read it. I think you are a thoughtful person who can parse what I’m saying.
I hear a lot of ignorant people who have that same attitude: HURR, HURR discrimination, HURR, HURR ACLU, and we both know there is a lot of discrimination to minorities and the disabled, and a need for civil liberties to be protected.
I’m glad to hear you don’t discriminate, I apologize if that’s how I came across.
Go commercial, fewer headaches.
“Someday the ACLU will come in and make the claim bad credit or background history is a disability and we can’t discriminate…” Not sure how your comment was misinterpreted but it was. You should have the right to reject a potential tenant based on bad credit or a background that is criminal, disruptive or destructive. I would say you have a responsibility to yourself and your neighbors to do just that.
bgrcitizen, you’re missing my point if you think I misinterpreted davidvsgoliaths simple sentence.
I wasn’t saying he/she discriminates against anyone (although he/she appears to have taken it that way), or that it’s somehow wrong to deny people tenancy with regards to bad credit…It’s not discrimination to check credit and deem it not up to snuff.
I said it was dismissive and a throwaway jokey insult, crapping on the ALCU, taking a swipe at disabilities, and mocking the idea of discrimination, when those are three distinct problems that really don’t need any more jokey one-liners.
That’s just a little too much of big brother interfering in private business. If an auto dealership had a high percentage of people that purchase vehicles from them getting OUIs would big brother tell them that they can no longer sell cars because they are not selecting suitable customers?
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So keep calling the cops on the loser.
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You are talking about discrimination Bangorian. Doesn’t everyone deserve to be treated fairly?
If we do that, we’ll need some 6 lane highways with bigger bridges to sleep under.
While I understand your point many of these properties in this neighborhood are sec 8 housing. Does the government play a role?
Section 8 housing is funded by your tax money and mind. Do you really think that the slums of First Street are a good way for us to be spending our money? That money should be used to fund housing in places that aren’t slums.
Probably not. I’m sure they can bust up their new places as much as the old.
Section 8 can seemingly be anywhere. Many landlords will rent to absolutely anybody and many tenants will trash whatever you give them(and many landlords won’t care to fix it up much).
Do you work for the landlord that owns these, because if i know who it is, one out of two people then they dont check references, they just rent
I don’t work for anyone, an have no interest in that part of town
who is your management company?
Believe he’s referring to Marsh Management
Since using them going back quite a few years now we have had only one tardy payment from a tenant, which was exceptable once explained. we have a few buildings and when someone is ready to move we have always had notice from the tenant and management company. It works really good…
They have to live some were ,why not first street ?Besides that its not to far from the jail!!
Bangor has had some very tough neighborhoods throughout it’s history. My Irish family grew up on York Street and Highland Ave. There will always be people of lesser means and they will live in these neighborhoods until some, not all, pick themselves up and work their way out. It happens every day here and around this country. Some of Bangor’s most successful immigrants found their way out and became prominent citizens. The drunks that lurked Bangor’s streets for many years have been somewhat replaced by people with drug problems. This has nothing to do with who holds the deed on these apartment buildings.
I totally agree, and they should start looking at general assistance and how they pay for rent each month for these people who don’t want to work for a living but still find money to do their drugs and drink and smoke. Our tax dollars keep going up here and the city needs to put a limit on how much they spend on GA. If the money is not there then let them go to another town or state for assistance. This would solve a lot of problems here!!!!!
I know of more than one house in a great neighborhood, one on West Broadway (the big house section) that had events that were going on in it that were so diturbing and horrible that…well….let’s just say it has nothing to do with the houses but the people occupying them.
!st such a big surprise, has not changed still the same 2nd st Walter st, 3rd, ect… I lived on Warren st, years ago, and still no change.
2nd street, 3rd street, warren and Parker have a neighborhood watch in place. The watch has made huge strides in cutting down problems. I guess the operative word in your msg is “used” to live there, don’t tar and feather streets based on what you “used” to know.
I agree, not to tar and feather entire streets by the actions of a very few…Although it stuck out like a sore thumb to me that 1st street apparently does NOT have a neighborhood watch. ( Time to start one, I think).
Murder can happen on any street.
Yes, 1st street could do with their own neighborhood watch, it may behoove them, but I think it is all low rent apartment buildings on 1st street.
1st street needs the landlords to start caring about what goes on and their buildings. If buildings were brought up to code and forced to be cleaner, neater and well maintained it would make a difference.
The first st area is also isolated from the larger neighborhoods – kind of its own little enclave surrounded by the large commercial & service buildings on Main and Cedar Streets, and with a pretty big hill between it and Second St. Isolation is never a good recipe with “troubled neighborhoods”.
Part of thte reason the other areas are better is likely because there are more ‘eyes on the street’, especially on Second, which gets lots of traffic from the Y and Third which is a pretty major thoroughfare.
Great points!
That whole area really needs to be cleaned up. I dont even like driving in those neighborhoods not that i do it often but when i find myself with no choice it scares me. There must something that can be done, it is what is best for everyone.
Really? If you drive down 2nd street, for example, you will see a lot of beautifully well kept homes.
Guess the YMCA doesn’t know what they are doing either, since they walk kids up and down 2nd street all day long back and forth to the park. if it was that bad surely that would be a no-no.
you want to do something? you want to have this area cleaned up? Then do something about it and help instead of just complaining.
I walk through this neighborhood daily, and walk by the house that had trouble probably once a week. there is nothing scary here, driving on Brewer streets bothers me more.
Don’t condone all streets based on what happened on 1st street!
Bulldoze the whole neighborhood and plant grass.
Yeah too bad so sad, the City is going to pump millions of dollars in to this area in the next few years, new walk ways, gardens, parks, seating areas, trees, etc etc — so keep thinking your happy little “bulldoze” dreams, when the reality is way different.
What a snobby comment!
And what neighborhood would everyone who lives there now move to?
Hopefully right next door to Bangorian ;)
I know Bangorian personally, he lives in this neighborhood. I’m not sure why he would want to bulldoze his own place.
Hope you don’t mean marijuana. Or wait…maybe that would calm everyone down.
You are talking about someones Home. There are children on that street that enjoy anything that their mom and dad can provide for them. Life can be hard at times and attitudes like yours make it even harder for most. Grow up.
will be ok till an innocent child steps on an aids infected needle…then what? will be too late then.
Nice stereotype. I guess that is expected when dealing with ellsworth people. Needlles and Aids are only in the parking lots in that wannabe town of hellsworth. Oh wait, I just stereotyped ellsworth, that isn’t fair, oops.
delena.alternatemedicinestore2010.com/ar
You can do that on the beach in Hawaii at the Hyatt Regency-not just First Street in Bangor.
delena.alternatemedicinestore2010.com/ar
If history is any guide, one of those kids living in that area will be able to buy and sell the rest of us at some point. Growing up in a tough neighborhood can be the best motivator- often.
Preaching to the choir here. If they do it by offering housing to lower rent families then good for them.
You seem awful prejudiced for a school teacher. Kids seem dumber now-a-days, should we fire all of the current teachers and hire new ones, obviously they must all be bad. Once the City bulldozes your house, we can discuss this neighborhood.
A lot of bad stuff has gone down on First St. and others as well.–You can not blame a “street” for what the people that live there do!—I do agree, some landlords will rent to just about anyone, as long as they see some money up front, with no background checks.–But, you could live in the nicest part of town, and still have problems next door!!
I don’t think first street has any private homes, does it? all rentals probably owned by lawyers.
So yes that would be a place for the city to start its project..
Maybe the city can give cianbro the property through eminent domain and they can build a bypass through there.
Then charge you $5 to use it.
I dont think it has any private homes.
Yes, it does read my reply!!
I apologize.
I grew up in a single family home on First St, and my family is still there. There are others as well. The neighborhood can be rough at times, but as a result, for someone who grew up in rural Maine, I’d say I definitely have more “street smarts” than many of my friends who grew up in, say, the “tree streets” or Little City areas!
Here is something interesting for you.
so HUD is funding the majority of the revitalization project for this area. One of the things that was talked about was the percentage of single family homes to rental properties was way off kilter. That the balance had to shift to having more single family homes and less apartments.
Move forward a month.
A house on warren comes up for sale, it was 2 apartments. HUD owns it. They put it on the market as owner occupy only, that lasted TWO WEEKS, then they shifted it to investors could buy it, and that day it got sold!
TWO WEEKS? Gee HUD, nothing like giving people the chance to see it, view it, think about it, and decide to buy it!
There is a house right now being converted in to apartments, hmmmm, well, they had to get planning permission for that, so what happened to “we need to push the percentage back to more single family than rentals?”
Bangor City counsel says one thing out of one side of their mouths, and does the complete opposite.
take the HUD owned property on Sanford street. They supposedly “repaired it” — know what they did? They went in and put a new floor over the top of the old kitchen floor to level it, but when you go to the 2nd floor everything slopes so badly it makes you nauseous walking in their. The front deck/porch is actually falling off the building right now!
Bangor hasn’t changed the zones because it still possibile they choose to put 1666 new units in that area.. There is always something going on behind the scenes that as they say the stakeholders have an interest in… Find out who bought it an that will tell you why it was changed. It’s not about your neighborhood it’s all about the friends power circle.
I dont trust ANYTHING they say anymore, this comes specifically on the back of them telling people at the revitalization meeting the email/private info they provided as they signed in was private, and when someone asked them for the names/emails of EVERYONE who attended those meetings, they handed it over, without saying a word to anyone first, claiming the freedom of information act!
WRONG!!! There are TWO private homes on First St. My family has been in our home for well over 50 years and it has sadden us greatly what has been allowed to happen here!!!
BANGOR HAS GONE TO THE GUTTER
If you have ever lived in any other city, you would realize that Bangor is a much safer, saner and nicer place to live. There are idiots everywhere.
Agreed. And if anyone disagrees, I’d recommend that they try Lewiston…say, around Blake & Ash Streets near the police station, Kennedy Park, or lower Lisbon St. First St. looks like heaven when compared with those places.
Rationalize it any way you want to. I live in Texas right now and statistically my neighborhood has less crime than Bangor does, especially drug-related and violent crime. It’s sad to see what’s happening.
Move!
I’m seeing a lot of comments about the landlords who rent to “these people” unfortunately many places won’t rent to people with no credit history or bad credit or have never had an apartment before, so many people are stuck with what they can get, just because you live on a street known for bad happenings it doesn’t mean everyone there is bad!
I’m glad the police have “deemed the death suspicious”. You think several stab wounds might be suspicious? I had relatives that lived at 67 First St for many years. So sorry that this is what the area has become. There was a resident super that lived in the building, and rented the apartments, collected the rents, painted, papered, and kept everything neat and clean for new tenants. If a tenant raised a problem they were out, no question. Times have change I guess.
bangahrang must live on first street?
Wrong, but nice try. Run along now, there’s a good little chap!
my bad, you do have some connection with this article though. that was just my guess.
I apologize for being snippy. I do live in the area, and it gets frustrating having to continually defend the streets that do work really hard at trying to clean up the mess. It is going to be a slow process, and situations like this one just take us backwards instead of forwards and taint everyones thoughts on this area.
doesn’t seem like their isn’t a safe place to move anywhere here is bangor!
Plenty of safe and quite places in Bangor. Some streets are rough closer to town where the same street 1/2 mile away is perfectly safe.
Pretty sad to get to work and find blood all over the road outside my window this morning.
Wow, yesterday evening I was walking around a couple of blocks from this area and saw four shirtless, pretty tough-looking guys in their 20s. They were walking toward First St… one looked to have a knife in a sheath on his belt. I wasn’t very close to them so its hard to say.
I very rarely feel uncomfortable walking around, but something about these guys made me think “please leave me alone”. I wonder if this was part of the crowd involved in the fight.
yeah, when i’ve called pd about the needles i’ve found, they simply said, “sorry, too much red tape, it’s the neighborhood you moved into.”
Half the reason this area is a problem rests on the Police Departments shoulders. If they responded quickly, without a song and dance on the phone with dispatch before they even take your complaint, and then arrested people for whatever they are doing, irregardless of whether they will get a conviction or not _ because right now if they don’t think they can get a conviction they don’t bother arresting people_ then maybe, just maybe people would get the message that if you mess around you WILL get arrested. Right now the PD is a joke and people don’t care, because the PD doesn’t care and doesn’t do squat!
i feel your frustration, before that kid bobby surles was shot on cumberland st i told pd about the situation with the skatepark kids and the “bangor bloods” and that someone was going to get hurt…. they told me not to take my kids to the second st park, parkview or the skatepark… what a joke.. the city had just put in a new playground at second st park!
quote from ch5:
“They basically just punched him, kicked him, at one point they picked
him up and dropped him on his head. They just kept kicking him and
punching him,” said Soto.”
Bangor PD are becoming a joke!
Becoming?!
you’re right ….”are”
what a crap hole area for sure…..
Bangor –
Bangor police are trying to figure out what led to a man’s death on
First Street, Tuesday morning. They responded to a home there around
1:45 a.m. for a report of a fight or domestic dispute.
Police say a man was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
They have not released his identity yet, but they are calling his death suspicious.
Police were alerted to the street by neighbor, Reva Soto, who called
911. Soto told TV5 she awoke to shouting coming from outside her home.
When she looked out the window, she said she saw a man beating a woman.
“I was hearing loud screams. This guy screaming he was going to kill this girl,” said Soto.
Moments later, Soto said another woman ran outside to try and stop him.
“Basically, another individual came, and while he was beating her she
smashed him on the head with a two-by-four and she knocked him out. He
was out, laying down flat and then he started moving a little bit. So,
that’s how I knew he was alive, but when he tried like moving toward the
other house that’s when the guys went after him.” said Soto.
Soto said there was a party taking place inside a home, and when everyone learned of the fight they came outside and joined in.
“They basically just punched him, kicked him, at one point they picked
him up and dropped him on his head. They just kept kicking him and
punching him,” said Soto.
Bangor police have not confirmed her version of events, but said they
are still talking to all parties involved and trying to determine what
happened.
They have not yet released a cause of death.
http://www.wabi.tv/news/30281/update-bangor-police-investigate-suspicious-death-eyewitness-talks-to-tv5
http://www.wabi.tv/news/30281/update-bangor-police-investigate-suspicious-death-eyewitness-talks-to-tv5
Bangor is getting pretty bad and why did it take so long to call the police in that building if they were all partying and making noise. Probably nobody has to get up and go to work for a living, and the landlords there do not care!! They will rent to anyone as long as they are making a buck on these rundown apartments. Keep raising our taxes Bangor to fund general assistance so these losers have a place to live!!!
..because when you call dispatch it is a game of 20 questions about who you are, where you live, your date of birth, (surprised they dont ask when you had a last bowel movement!) before they will even let you tell them what the issue is. Then they are rude and condescending when you even mention 1st street, 2nd street, 3rd street, warren, Sandford, Parker etc
You get treated like the criminal instead of the good citizen calling in asking for help.
Then the cops dont show, or they are really slow, or, the supervisor calls them on the radio and tells them not to bother responding and to come back or go somewhere else.
Then they watch the fight, tell people to stop, then wag their finger at them and make them sit in time out on the sidewalk, then let them all go with a “dont do it again!”
I am not joking, all these scenarios are very much real and have happened!
I was driving in that area the night Godsmack was in town about 9:30 at night when I came near 2nd St there was a man laying in the middle of the road and a women with a drink in her hand trying to pull him up she yelled at me to stop but I kept going because it did not feel safe to me. It’s too bad that Bangor has attracted such scum when I was young I would ride my 10 speed all around the area frequenting the parks it offers for breaks I can’t even imagine now.
I sit here puzzeled?? What on earth does the landlord have to do with someone committing a criminal act? Do we have to look at every crime ever committed by anyone that happens to be renting instead of owning,so that we can blame the landlord?? I am amazed at the” blame someone” society that we have become. The landlord owns the building,not the minds of the tenants.It would be impossible to know or even sense what actions a person is going to make.The whole discussion is absolutley ridiculus!
To the person that said Bangor is getting bad did not live in capehart n the 70’s. It wasn’t called the little city for nothing, there was not bath salts then but there was a lot of violence and drugs, I have lived in the Bangor area all of my life and have never heard or seen anything like what went on there….
People have very short memories. Plus, there aren’t a lot of intelligent people on this board. That is a fact.
I would just like to point out that this horrific event (as well as frequent drug abuse and other crimes) took place no more than a few hundred yards from the new Bangor Police Department headquarters. The people who agitated and passed around petitions and wrote impassioned letters to the editor about the “need” to keep the BPD HQ in the downtown area rather than relocating it to a larger and less expensive facility elsewhere in the city in the name of “keeping downtown safe” should take this opportunity to reexamine their logic.
I can tell you, as a decades-long resident of First Street, that I don’t feel any safer being a stone’s throw from “the cop shop,” and this is no slight on the BPD – it’s just the reality that cops can’t be everywhere at once, and where they locate their headquarters is probably utterly inconsequential to their ability to serve and protect. All I know is that the building looks cramped, ridiculous, and out-of-place in the space it currently occupies, and that we spent extra badly-needed tax dollars to accommodate some vague notions of “safety” and “civic pride,” which, in the light of this recent homicide as well as other crimes, have proven to be baseless. I, for one, would have preferred to see that money go towards programs or development that could be concretely shown to improve the standards of living for the citizens of Bangor, not on some pie-in-the-sky fantasy that having a police headquarters in one’s backyard automatically provides any kind of benefit to a community.
If you walk around my neighborhood at night, cop shop or no, you had better keep your eyes and ears open and exercise due caution; First Street is by no means the inner city, but there’s plenty of inner city streets that haven’t seen three murders in ten years, so I don’t really want to hear from others how much good having the BPD in the downtown area all these years as done, because I know better.