Damos served as chief of police for the University City, Missouri, Police Department for 28 years, retiring in 1989. He had never even been a police officer when University City asked him to become police chief in 1961. According to the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Damos was working in his family’s movie theater business when the city manager named him chief. Damos possessed the management skills the department needed, and he also was the department’s only college graduate at the time.

He helped found the Major Case Squad of Greater Saint Louis and became its first chairman.