A Bangor man’s plans to steal a pickup truck in Bangor and drive to Ellsworth to visit friends ended about 50 feet from the driveway when the burglary was interrupted by the owner and then police.

Bangor police arrested Jeffrey Olsen, 19, of 172A Center St. on two warrants and on the charges of criminal trespassing, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and two counts of burglary to a motor vehicle, reported Officer Russell Twaddell.

Police also arrested a 17-year-old girl who admitted assisting in some of Olsen’s burglaries. The name of the girl was not released because she is a juvenile.

A resident of Fruit Street called police about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday to report that two people were rummaging through his pickup truck. Officer Chris Morley found where recent tracks had been made in the grass behind one house but lost the track. He found the two hiding in a nearby camper.

The girl, who has been a ward of the state since she was 5 years old, was taken to the police station where she provided details of the night’s events. She said the two had been walking around Bangor and that Olsen began getting into cars, according to Officer Brent Beaulieu.

Olsen said that he recently burglarized vehicles in this same area and had made a lot of money, the girl said. She denied going inside the motor vehicles, but said she waited nearby, and hid sometimes, according to police reports.

The teenage-girl also said that Olsen broke into a Frito-Lay truck on Palm Street and took four bags of chips, two of which they ate.

At one point, Olsen found keys inside a Toyota pickup truck and decided to roll the car down the driveway and start it up in the street. —-

A Holden man learned the hard way about Maine’s recent law that cracks down on the misuse of laser pointers.

Bangor police charged Ian McKenzie, 26, with criminal use of a laser pointer. McKenzie was crossing the parking lot of the YMCA on Court Street when he made the mistake of pointing the red laser light across the street.

The light bounced off Officers Steve Jordan and Brian Nichols, who were standing outside the police station, located across the street from the parking lot.

Jordan and Nichols said that police officers are trained to know that a red laser means they are being targeted by a firearm, and take the matter seriously. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a law making it a crime to injure or intimidate someone with a laser pointer.

Jordan and Nichols crossed the street where Jordan ordered McKenzie onto the ground. He was handcuffed and arrested and Jordan walked him down to the Penobscot County Jail. McKenzie had two people with him, including a woman who told Nichols that she told McKenzie “not to do it.”

— Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli