Bangor, Maine police blotter

TC, Bangor Police Department, Maine - A man who did not understand why the local pharmacy did not sell or distribute medical marijuana, made statements which made the employees feel uncomfortable. For a short time, he wandered around the store until they called for a police officer.

Patrol Officer Tyler Rusby was sent to speak to the man and found him at a nearby convenience store. As Rusby explained to the gentleman that he could not return to the pharmacy for a year, the clerk from the convenience store came outside and asked Rusby to remove the man from their property.

Apparently the man had gone into the store to tell the clerk that the bottle return machine was refusing to pay him for some returnables he had put inside. The machine had been checked and it became clear the machine was empty, essentially because the man had not placed any returnables inside. This is called lying. It used to be unacceptable. Now it seems like it’s mandatory. And I will tell you people are very good at it.

The man became angry and began to use coarse language toward the clerk and Officer Rusby. He even called Rusby an A**#0!#. I can vouch that Rusby is not an A**#0!#, and so can his mother. She called him a dip@$*1. I agree with Mrs. Rusby.

Rusby told the man that he had to leave the property. The man complied.

On April Fools day, two participants pulled into the parking lot of our station and began to berate one another in a manner not conducive to our credo.

Officer Duncan Bowie went outside to find out what he could do to calm them down. Their story was one which we hear all too often; one car cutting off another car. This sometimes leads to a mutual display of middle digits, which then turns into people taking both hands off the wheel to “one up” the other finger-flinger and pretty soon it starts to look like a bad family reunion in the north end of Boston. Hands, fingers, harsh words, and no pasta or garlic bread in sight.

Bowie used his Scottish gibberish to confuse them, and they calmed down enough to mutually agree that flipping each other off was probably at the root of the problem. He told them to leave the lot and go about their business. They did. Because “adulting” is sometimes the best answer to the question.

A woman who lives in an apartment over a local business called to report the sounds of crashing and banging downstairs. The business was closed and she reported that no one should have been inside.

Officer Aaron Brooker found that windows were smashed and badly damaged. Witnesses had noted the man who did it was now back in his own apartment across the street.

Oddly, when he police officers knocked on the door of the suspects apartment, the music volume changed but he did not answer. Officer Brooker saw him sitting on the couch through an open window and asked the man to come outside. The man walked over to the window and shut it with his foot and returned to his couch.

We get used to this.

Brooker then went back across the street to meet the owner of the business to find out the glass replacement would be in the area of three thousand dollars. It was a big window.

In an attempt to talk to the man again, Brooker and Officer James Burns knocked on the door and the man told them he was a United States Marshal and would only come outside once the officers were dead.

This is always concerning.

The man asked the officers to leave but before they did, he would like to have a beer with them. Seeing this as an opportunity to speak to the man face to face, Brooker agreed to the invitation.

Anyone who has met Brooker knows that in order to talk to him for any length of time, you need to give him beer. This suspect was insightful.

Suddenly the door opened a crack, only limited in its movement by the safety chain, and a Molson Canadian beer was handed out through the slot. Brooker graciously took the beer but before the conversation could even get off the ground the man slammed the door in Brooker’s face again.

Brooker has been in this type of situation in the past, most likely when he was trying to get a date to the Millinocket Senior Prom in the early 90s. He didn’t drink the beer this time. The officers made the decision to leave the gentleman for a few minutes to allow him to calm down.

It was not long before another complainant came forward after he received a similar invitation to have a beer with the man. Only this time the beer was thrown at the man as he passed by the residence.

The beer wielding gentleman was arrested a short time later and charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. Brooker was somewhat disappointed that the Molson had to be placed into evidence. He was later overheard mentioning that “it was warm anyway.”

Here is my final, and my favorite story, of the week.

Last week a complainant reported that a male was drinking a beer near a rental car facility on outer Hammond Street. The complainant said he was no longer “on scene” but gave a clear description of a man wearing black pants, red/black shoes, and a leather jacket.

Officers checked the area and did not find the man. They cleared the scene.

A short time later, in the time frame it would take to walk from outer Hammond Street to our location on Main Street, a man walked into the station and said he wanted to be arrested for violating his bail. Officer Farrar asked him, “Why?”

The man said he had been drinking beer and taking medications that were not prescribed to him. Farrar found in our system that the man also had an active warrant.

Farrar noticed that the man was wearing black pants, red/black shoes, and a leather jacket. He had heard the radio call earlier. Farrar realized this must have been the individual that was reported to be drinking near the rental car facility.

Farrar asked the man if he had called the police on himself earlier. The gentleman confirmed he had called in his location to try to get a ride to jail, but the cops must not have seen him as he walked to the station.

Sometimes, it’s even hard to get arrested in Bangor.

Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people’s things alone, and be kind to one another.

All we have is each other.