Prosecutors have dismissed several felony-level charges against a man who police arrested last fall following a crash and a shooting on Grant Street.
Portland police charged Evert Aristides Delgado Menjivar, 28, almost two weeks after responding to reports of a crash, gunfire and fighting on Grant Street near Deering Avenue in October.
Officers said a man in his late 20s had crashed his car into another parked vehicle and was bleeding from a head wound. The department has never identified the man and a spokesperson declined to release his identity Tuesday afternoon.
Police found evidence of gunfire at the scene, but no one was shot, they said. The driver was taken to Maine Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
Conversations with that driver later led police to issue warrants against Delgado Menjivar, charging him with aggravated attempted murder, kidnapping, criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and assault.
He turned himself in on Oct. 14 and sat in jail for months until a grand jury convened in February. Jurors agreed not to indict him and the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office dropped all of the charges. A spokesperson for the office said it is not pursuing charges against anyone else in the case.
Attorney Robert Levine, who represented Delgado Menjivar, said Tuesday that his client has always maintained his innocence and claimed self-defense.
Delgado Menjivar said that the unidentified man had offered to pay Delgado Menjivar to hold his gun for safekeeping. But some time later as the two were driving around, the man threatened to shoot Delgado Menjivar, they fought over the gun, and it went off, Levine said.
When the car crashed, Delgado Menjivar ran. The other man stayed behind and told police Delgado Menjivar was the aggressor, the attorney said.
Levine advised his client to turn himself in after the warrants were issued. In early December, Delgado Menjivar shared his account of events with police. The court allowed Delgado Menjivar to share the same account with a grand jury in February, which did not indict him.
Assistant District Attorney Deb Chmielewski signed a form dismissing Delgado Menjivar’s charges on Feb. 7.
Chmielewski declined to discuss the dismissal through a spokesperson. A police affidavit outlining probable cause for Delgado Menjivar’s arrest was not included in his case file Monday at the Cumberland County courthouse.
Portland police declined to comment on the dismissal of charges against Delgado Menjivar or the investigation that led to his arrest. A spokesman cited state laws limiting the release of confidential criminal records.
At the time of the arrest, Chief Heath Gorham said he was proud of his officers’ work.
“It’s important to publicly recognize the hard work that goes into each of these extremely complex investigations,” Gorham said. “It involves hundreds of hours of time for all facets of the Police Department.”
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