Police spot teen rolling joint inside his home

With his back to the living room window, a 16-year-old Old Town youth rolling a marijuana cigarette didn’t realize he had an audience.

But police called to the Union Street home on another matter watched as the boy prepared the marijuana joint on a tray on his lap late Thursday night. Old Town police Officer Christopher Hashey said he watched through the window for about a minute before having Officer Brent Fournier knock on the door.

The boy’s step-brother answered the door and alerted his sibling, “It’s the cops,” according to police. Hashey, still watching the window, said the teen-ager hesitated but then placed the tray on a couch and put a pillow on top of it.

In the kitchen, Hashey confronted the 16-year-old, whose name was not being released as he is a juvenile. At the officer’s request, the teen-ager went back to the living room and got the tray that held a completed joint, rolling papers, scissors and some more marijuana, Hashey said.

Hashey issued summonses to the teen-ager, charging him with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. When he looked, he found the marijuana was gone. Confronted about the missing items, the 16-year-old told Hashey he thought the officer had given him back the marijuana to keep. Hashey assured the boy that that was not the case and had him get it again.

The discovery of the marijuana was accidental, as police had gone to the home to talk to another sibling about a harassment complaint, according to police.

Dorrance Richardson, 29, of Old Town, faces a charge of assault after it was reported he threw a telephone book at a woman when she refused to read it in the apartment they were sitting in.

Richardson was talking with two women at an apartment at 50 Shirley St. in Old Town Thursday night when he picked up the phone book and gave it to one of the women and told her to read it, the women told Officer Brent Fournier. The woman refused and put the phone book down. Moments later, according to the report, Richardson picked up the book and threw it at the woman, striking her on the side of the face, leaving marks, Fournier reported.

Richardson lives in the same apartment building as the women do, and when the officers found him, they reported that he was so intoxicated that he was difficult to understand. They couldn’t get anything more than Richardson’s claim that he had been asleep all night. Fournier reported that earlier Richardson had been seen peering out of his door as the officers arrived.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli