The man charged Sunday after a standoff with Portland police had a similar confrontation with officers in January when he allegedly threatened people with a knife outside a different Portland apartment building and then tried to flee.
Carlos Ernesto Ramos-Dubon Photo courtesy Cumberland County Jail
In the earlier case, Carlos Ernesto Ramos-Dubon’s mother blamed his behavior on alcohol. He was charged in January but the case is still pending, one of thousands delayed by the pandemic.
“Carlos acts irrational and belligerent when he drinks,” Officer Vincent Rozzi wrote in a report, paraphrasing his interview with Morena Dubon earlier this year. “Carlos acts like this when he is intoxicated and has brandished a firearm to the family before. Enough for family members to hide from him.”
Ramos-Dubon, 24, was charged Sunday with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, reckless conduct, refusal to submit to arrest, violating the conditions of his release and creating a police standoff at a State Street apartment building. He is being held without bail in the Cumberland County Jail until his first court appearance, on Wednesday.
A heavy police presence was at State and Danforth streets in Portland on Sunday afternoon. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
Police surrounded the building Sunday after someone reported a man was standing outside pointing a handgun at passing cars. When they arrived, they found a man brandishing a firearm, but he refused their commands and fled inside the building. After a five-hour negotiation, police fired chemical irritants into Ramos-Dubon’s apartment, flushing out both him and another man, who may be a relative and is facing misdemeanor allegations.
The other person charged, Jose Ramos-Dubon, 26, faces misdemeanor counts of obstructing government administration and refusing to submit to arrest. He was released on unspecified bail.
In January, when Carlos Ernesto Ramos-Dubon had his only other run-in with police in Maine, multiple people called Portland police after 9 p.m. on a weekday to report a man waving around a knife on the porch of a triple-decker building on Weymouth Street.
A witness later reported having seen Ramos-Dubon threaten a 16-year-old at knifepoint outside, holding the weapon to the young man’s neck. Ramos-Dubon then chased the boy back into the apartment building, yelling from the front porch that he “owned this block,” according to police records.
When police arrived, they found Ramos-Dubon and a woman on the front porch at 8 Weymouth St. The woman did not appear afraid, but Ramos-Dubon was still waving the knife, Officer Sean Hurley wrote in a report filed in Cumberland County Unified Criminal Court.
A police officer carries two ballistic shields into 62 State St. on Sunday. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
Hurley wrote that he ordered Ramos-Dubon to drop the knife, but instead Ramos-Dubon allegedly came off the porch and began making stabbing motions in his direction.
“At this point I was in fear for my life and took cover behind a vehicle,” Hurley wrote.
ORDERED TO DROP THE KNIFE
As more officers showed up, Ramos-Dubon continued to “dance around and was speaking incoherently,” according to Hurley. At one point, Ramos-Dubon dropped the knife but picked it back up and “began to dance around with the knife more aggressively.”
With Ramos-Dubon’s attention drawn away, another officer on the scene moved between Ramos-Dubon and the woman standing on the porch to block Ramos-Dubon from lunging at her, police wrote.
Then Ramos-Dubon ran up Weymouth Street toward Congress Street, stopped, turned and ran back on Weymouth and then back to Congress. He was still armed and shouting incoherently, and police followed him at a distance. Pedestrians hurried across Congress Street to avoid him, according to the police report.
A sergeant on duty then shot Ramos-Dumon with two less-than-lethal rounds from a 40mm launcher, but they were ineffective. He was finally subdued and arrested after being stunned with a Taser.
Officers allegedly found the knife in his front pocket. He was charged with four counts of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, terrorizing with a dangerous weapon, reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and refusing to submit to arrest or detention. He has not been convicted and the case is listed for a Nov. 2 docket call, a routine court date.
In court paperwork in the first incident, Ramos-Dubon listed 62 State St., the address of the recent standoff, as his mailing address, and told a financial screener that he had not worked since December 2018, when he was employed at a coffee farm in El Salvador.
A family member told police at the time that Ramos-Dubon had been in the country for about a year, was originally from Venezuela and had crossed the border illegally.
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