Man surrenders after Newport standoff

NEWPORT – A Newport man remained in custody Sunday after holding police at bay with a shotgun for eight hours this weekend, firing several shots during the standoff.

After hours of sporadic talks Saturday afternoon and evening with a Maine State Police negotiating team, Robert Demasi, 47, surrendered to police outside his mobile home, tucked amid several others in a small trailer park on the corner of Route 7 and the Camp Benson Road.

Demasi, described by police as despondent, faces charges of creating a police standoff, criminal threatening with a firearm and violation of bail conditions from a drunken driving arrest the week before.

On Sunday, he was released from the Penobscot County Jail into protective custody at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, according to jail officials.”If you had to say it was a success, this was certainly a success in that no one was harmed and now Mr. Demasi can get the help he needs,” said Newport police Chief James Ricker. “It was a very long day.”

Ricker was among the first at Demasi’s mobile home after responding to an 11 a.m. call indicating that Demasi was suicidal and had intentions of harming police already outside the trailer.

It was during the initial negotiations that Demasi fired several shots from the trailer, but not necessarily directed at officers, police said.

Before noon, no fewer than 25 state police vehicles had descended on the park, evacuating its residents and cordoning off the area with yellow tape.

Residents sat on the nearby grass and watched camouflaged members of a state police tactical team appear and disappear behind the 6-foot-high wooden trellises that divide some of the lots.

As darkness fell, the only light came from inside a mobile communications center set up by police about 25 yards in front of Demasi’s small white trailer.

About an hour after nightfall, the standoff, which drew several curious onlookers throughout the day, was over.

“Is he alive?” a tearful woman reported to be Demasi’s sister asked as police emerged from the behind a row of nearby trailers at about 7:30 p.m.

A few minutes later, police escorted a handcuffed Demasi from the home and into a cruiser, which took him to the Newport Police Department.

Demasi is scheduled to appear in court early this week.