VINALHAVEN, Maine — A 27-year-old Vinalhaven man, who was involved in a confrontation that resulted in the death of Roger Feltis, was arrested Tuesday after he gave the finger to a crowd that had been protesting the homicide.
Dorian Ames was arrested June 23 by the Knox County Sheriff's Office and charged with disorderly conduct and violating a condition of release. The charge included an allegation that he possessed an expandable baton.
Judge Paul Mathews agreed with the request of Assistant District Attorney Lynn Madison to have Ames held without bail for violating the earlier conditions of release.
The Maine Department of Public Safety announced June 19 that Feltis was fatally injured during a June 14 confrontation at the home of Dorian and Briannah Ames on the Roberts Cemetery Road on Vinalhaven.
Briannah Ames was also injured during the confrontation and was treated and released from Pen Bay Medical Center.
The State Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death of Feltis as a homicide and that the death was the result of a knife wound.
No one has been charged in relation to that death.
Investigators are continuing to review evidence concerning Feltis' death, the autopsy results, and interviews in consultation with the Attorney General's Office.
Homicide means that one person caused the death of another person. Homicide can include murder, manslaughter, or justified use of lethal force in self-defense.
According to an affidavit filed in the Knox County court by Knox County Sheriff Sgt. Arthur Smith concerning the June 23 incident, Dorian Ames was collecting some of his belongings from the house where the stabbing occurred. A crowd of 20 to 30 peaceful protesters were there, according to the affidavit.
Ames then spit out the window of the vehicle he was in toward the protesters, Smith said. Then the people reported Ames gave them the finger.
Ames headed toward the ferry terminal but a decision was made to have him taken off the island via a Marine Patrol boat. A Marine Patrol officer found an expandable baton on Ames which was a violation of an earlier bail condition not to possess weapons, according to the affidavit.
The charge of disorderly conduct alleges Ames' action taunted the 30 to 40 people who were there by his obscene gesture.
Ames told the sergeant he did not give the finger to them and even if he did, claimed it was not illegal.
Dorian Ames, 27, Vinalhaven, has been free on bail for an unrelated incident from Sept. 15 on Vinalhaven. Police said he fired a gun into a pickup truck in which a woman was sitting.
Witnesses said about the September incident that Ames was with a group of people at a residence on the island and was heavily intoxicated. The witnesses said he began arguing with one of the people in the home and pushed the person. That person then pinned Ames to the floor.
Ames left the home and said he was going to his home to get a gun, according to the affidavit.
The resident of the home asked the man who had been in the altercation with Ames to leave, saying it would be safer since there were children in the home and he did not want Ames coming back to the house with a gun.
The man left along with a woman. That couple went to another home about a mile away to see if they could spend the night there. The man got out of the pickup truck and went up to the house while the woman got into the driver's side of the vehicle.
Ames arrived there in his car and immediately approached the pickup truck with a gun in his hand, yelling that he was going to kill the man who had pinned him earlier that night, according to the affidavit. The woman told Ames that the man was not in the vehicle, but Ames approached and pointed the gun at her before firing the gun and striking the vehicle near where the gas cap is located.
He then got in his car and drove away.
Ames is prohibited from having a gun because of a 2015 conviction in Knox County for domestic violence terrorizing.
