Ignoring red light results in charges

A 34-year-old Bangor man faces drunken driving and terrorizing charges after his arrest Monday night when he was seen running a red light.

The truck that Officer Roger Hershey subsequently stopped on Brimmer Street was the same one that was reported to police as having left the Tavern on Main Street in Bangor with an intoxicated driver behind the wheel. Hershey spoke to the driver, Robert Green, and reported he could smell alcohol coming from the man’s mouth. Green performed poorly on field sobriety tests and was arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants.

Green was searched by police who found a small bag of what they believed to be marijuana in his pants pocket. Later a corrections officer at the Penobscot County Jail discovered a marijuana pipe in another pocket, according to police.

At the jail, Green became belligerent and threatened to harm Officer Jason Moffitt, according to the police report. Besides OUI, Green was charged with terrorizing, possession of a usable amount of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In the early and cold morning hours Saturday, a Massachusetts man claimed he was out for a walk looking for his friend’s home, but Old Town police officers had other suspicions.

Shawn Michael Dutra of East Sandwich, Mass., wasn’t wearing a coat or other cold weather clothing, yet showed no signs of being cold despite his claims that he had walked from the nightclub Ushuaia, which is about three miles away and in Orono, the next town.

Then there were the unusual circumstances in which police had found Dutra.

Police located him hiding behind a vehicle in a driveway on Highland Avenue within sight of where police were looking for the driver of a car that was left running but abandoned after it was spotted speeding on South Main Street.

Dutra matched the basic description of the man Officer James Charpentier had seen speeding in the now-abandoned car, although Charpentier reported that he couldn’t be positive it was the same man.

Officers searched the area, including Bobbie Pelletier who followed a set of tracks that led behind several homes, through a fenced-in area and then to where Sgt. Michael Hashey had found Dutra, watching the police cruisers nearby from behind a vehicle. The footprints matched the shoes being worn by Dutra.

A resident also told Hashey that he saw Dutra jump his fence and cross his back yard.

Dutra eventually admitted to being the driver and police, already suspecting that Dutra was intoxicated, had him perform field sobriety tests. Dutra had difficulty with his fine motor skills and performed poorly on the tests and was arrested, charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli