LEWISTON — Police from all corners of the city converged on Birch Street on Thursday night after a brawl left one man injured and another man on the run.

All available officers rushed to the corner of Birch and Blake streets at about 9 p.m. where they found a large crowd dispersing and a man face-down in a parking lot.

Early reports were that the man had been struck in the head with a baseball bat after fighting with a group on the street. Others thought he had been stabbed.

The man, whose identity was not immediately available, was conscious when police reached him. A pair of men were down on the ground next to the victim, trying to keep him still. Until he was loaded into an ambulance, he thrashed and groaned and vowed revenge on the man who had attacked him.

Hundreds of people jammed the corner, lining the sidewalks and standing in the lot in front of Dominican Court at 56 Birch St. Several people said they had heard the brawl, but they did not see what transpired.

“I heard them fighting,” one woman said. “There was a lot of yelling and all that and then somebody screamed, ‘They got me; they got me!’ Then another man came running by. He jumped the fence and just kept going.”

Within minutes of the attack, five police cruisers and two ambulances were lined up on Birch Street. Police were searching for witnesses and potential suspects in the attack. It remained unknown what led to the brawl.

The victim was taken to Central Maine Medical Center where his condition was not available an hour after the fight that downed him.

The woman who reported hearing the fight and seeing the fleeing suspect said she was rattled by the attack. She had only moved to Lewiston a week ago and wasn’t accustomed to up-close views of violence.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” another woman told her. “I’ve only lived here a year and a half and I’ve already seen more than I want to see in my lifetime.”

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com

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