Bangor police Officer Steve Jordan reported he was in the parking lot of the Ranger Inn, Bangor, at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night when he noticed a black Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck backing directly into a snowbank. The truck then pulled forward and stopped in the path of traffic.

Jordan waited a few minutes, according to a police report, before he pulled alongside the truck. He observed a male driver who was staring straight ahead. The driver turned and saw Jordan, stepped out of his truck, and moved very slowly and unsteadily toward the cruiser. Jordan opened his passenger-side window, but the man said nothing.

Jordan asked him if he was “all set,” and the man told him he was. The police officer then asked the man if he was waiting for someone and the man just stared. Jordan repeated the question, and this time the man said “sort of.” When Jordan asked him if he had been drinking, the man answered in a slow and slurred speech, “three beers.”

Jordan got out of his cruiser, approached the man, and asked to see his driver’s license. The man pulled a wallet from his pocket and produced the license, at which time Jordan identified him as Steve J. Pal of Howland.

Jordan gave him a field sobriety test, on which the man performed poorly. Jordan arrested him for operating under the influence of intoxicants and handcuffed him. Officer Jim Dearing arrived to wait for a tow truck to remove Pal’s vehicle.

At the Bangor police station, Pal took an Intoxilyzer test, which showed 0.19 percent; he was given a summons and released.

An employee of The Grasshopper Shop at One West Market Square, Bangor, Wednesday reported that she was missing a wallet containing $300 in cash from her job site. The woman had returned from lunch break, placed her wallet on the counter next to the cash register and said “that was the last place she saw it,” according to a police report.

The woman reportedly searched through the store, but could not find the wallet. She said she was concerned because the wallet also contained her Maine driver’s license, Social Security card, GM credit card, library card and telephone card. She reported that she would cancel the credit card immediately, and would notify the police if anyone attempted to use it. There are no suspects at this time.

A man who is seen regularly at Miller’s OTB at 427 Main St., Bangor, tried to pass off a $50 counterfeit bill Wednesday night, said a female teller who works at the off-track betting room.

The woman called the Bangor Police Department after she examined the bill carefully and decided it might be bogus, according to a police report by Officer Steve Jordan.

The suspect was described as about 35-40 years of age, approximately 6 feet tall, with “dirty brown bushy hair and frumpy clothes.” The teller reportedly recognized the man from previous visits to Miller’s OTB, and from the Bass Park horse races, but she didn’t know his name.

John Miller, the restaurant’s manager, reportedly checked the videotapes and discovered that there was no tape running at the time. Jordan placed the phony bill into evidence.

A 19-year-old Glenburn resident on Wednesday discovered something about human behavior. Richard Wing went to Bangor Police Department headquarters to report the theft of his belongings, believing that someone had broken into a friend’s house on Everett Street, where he was staying.

Wing alleged that several pieces of electronic equipment were taken. Officer Jason McAmbley later went to the house to investigate and was met by Wing and his friend, a 17-year-old boy. Missing, Wing said, was a Sony Play Station with four games; a portable compact disc player; and approximately 20 CDs. The total value was estimated at about $150.

Wing reportedly told the officer that someone had climbed through a window, then went upstairs to a room he was using on the second floor and took his stuff.

According to the police report, McAmbley and Wing went upstairs to the room to look around. McAmbley found that nothing but the electronic gear was missing. McAmbley told Wing that he thought it was odd that nothing else was missing, and Wing agreed.

Back downstairs McAmbley spoke with Wing’s friend, asking him some questions about the alleged break-in. The young man reportedly was defensive, saying only that someone had taken Wing’s stuff. McAmbley told the young man that he thought it was strange that only Wing’s things were missing, and the young man reportedly remained silent.

McAmbley proceeded to question him further, but then the young man became very defensive. The officer was convinced that he wasn’t telling the truth about what he knew, or about his possible involvement with the missing items. The youth gave McAmbley the names of two other friends, saying they may know something about it. Again, McAmbley thought the youth wasn’t being completely truthful.

The two went into the kitchen, where McAmbley asked him to tell the truth about what happened. The young man invited the officer to go back upstairs with him, accompanied by his mother. McAmbley discovered the missing items in the mother’s closet. The mother then left the room and McAmbley asked Wing’s friend why he had taken the items.

The reported response was that he was “tired of Richard lying to him all of the time.” He was angry at Wing, he said, for “harassing him about a girl he liked at school.”

Wing packed up his belongings and said he didn’t want to press charges against his friend, but that he “just wanted his things back.”

– Compiled by Alixandra Williams of the NEWS Staff