AUGUSTA — Police continue to search for a robbery suspect more than a week after he allegedly struck another man with a hammer on Mount Vernon Avenue.
Police have been searching for Zachary A. Gagnon, 31, of Augusta, since June 26, when he allegedly approached two people sitting at a picnic table outside College Carry Out and struck one of them, a Farmingdale man, with a hammer during a botched robbery attempt.
The victim, Brett Gray, 28, suffered non life-threatening injuries for which he was treated at the scene.
“We’re still looking for him,” Augusta police Sgt. Christopher Shaw said of Gagnon Thursday.
Shaw said Gagnon may have fled the area to avoid capture and his likely return to jail.
Gagnon was freed from federal prison in December 2008 after serving nearly six years of an eight-year sentence for his role in the 2001 robbery of an Augusta pharmacy. He remains on federal probation.
Kennebec County jail records indicate Gagnon was released from the county jail June 22 on a protection-from-abuse-order violation.
The robbery attempt, four days later, occurred shortly before 8 p.m., as Gray was sitting at a picnic table outside College Carry Out with a female companion.
“He was approached by the suspect, who struck him a couple times with a blunt object, believed to be a hammer, and demanded money,” Augusta police Lt. Kevin Lully said at the time.
Gray didn’t give his attacker any money, and ran into the store and told employees to call police, Lully said. The attacker fled in a black Ford Ranger.
Gagnon was one of three people to take part in an armed robbery of an Augusta CVS in 2001. He was sentenced in 2002 to nearly eight years in prison and ordered to pay $10,300 in restitution after pleading guilty to armed robbery, aiding and abetting the use of a firearm in the commission of a federal crime, and drug possession with intent to distribute.
Police across the state have been asked to be on the lookout for Gagnon.
Augusta police have asked anyone with information on Gagnon’s whereabouts to call 626-2370, Ext. 0.
Craig Crosby — 621-5642
ccrosby@centralmaine.com
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