Portland police charged a 62-year-old man with elevated aggravated assault after he allegedly sent his Danforth Street neighbor to the hospital in critical condition.

Everett H. Meserve Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office

Everett H. Meserve is being held on $50,000 bail on charges that he attacked Rodney Cleveland, a 63-year-old acquaintance who lived nearby, police said in a news release Sunday.

Police were called to 81 Danforth St. at 4 p.m. Sunday to investigate reports of an assault. They found Cleveland injured in his apartment and had him transported to Maine Medical Center. Late that same night, they arrested Meserve on assault charges.

As of Sunday morning, Cleveland remained in critical condition, police said.

The police did not say what prompted the altercation. The investigation is ongoing, they said.

Meserve has a criminal history stretching back to the 1970s, including assault and burglary convictions in the ’80s and ’90s, according to state records.