Bangor police respond to call from silent man

There was no voice on the other end of the phone call to Bangor police on Wednesday afternoon, but a man who couldn’t speak answered yes or no questions from a police dispatcher by tapping on the phone.

The call from 58 Perkins Ave. came in at 4:34 p.m. and dispatcher Sue Ellis could hear breathing, but no voice. As police were heading to the address, Ellis questioned the caller, who responded with two taps for yes and one tap for no. She was able to determine that an ambulance wasn’t needed and that no weapons were involved and she passed this information on to Officers Brad Hanson and Kevin MacLaren, who were uncertain about what they would find when they arrived at the scene.

At the residence, a man with a feeding tube in his nasal passages and a tracheal tube came to the door, according to police reports.

He had written a brief note to police, telling them his live-in girlfriend of two months was intoxicated and had been assaulting him, and that he didn’t feel secure there with her. “I don’t feel safe with her,” he wrote.

The man wrote that his girlfriend, 37-year-old Terry Retke, had punched and pushed him and had tried to pull out his tracheal tube. Retke would say little about what had happened, telling police her boyfriend was concerned that she might be leaving him.

She was arrested and charged with domestic assault. Officer Steven Jordan reported that on the way to the jail, Retke was abusive toward him. At the jail, before patting her down, a corrections officer asked her if she had anything on her that would hurt him or her.

“Only my [expletive] attitude,” she responded, Jordan reported.

A family fight ended with two arrests Wednesday morning in Bangor.

After a night of drinking, Joseph Snow, 30, of Bangor was verbally abusive to his girlfriend, Sherri Joyce, of Bangor, who also had been drinking, according to a Bangor police report. As the morning progressed, Snow started pushing and shoving Joyce, 30, in the head and chest. He also held her against the wall several times while continuing to shout, according to the report.

According to Bangor police Officer Erik Tall, Snow attempted to leave Joyce’s residence on Walter Street with their twin 3-year-old daughters. At 4 a.m. Snow called his mother, Janice Chase of Sedgwick, to pick him and his daughters up, and Joyce tried to intervene when they tried to leave the house. Chase, who had taken care of the children in the past, then held Joyce back while Snow brought the children to Chase’s vehicle.

Joyce, however, ran from the house and jumped in the rear seat of the vehicle as they were leaving the area. As she was trying to get into the car, Joyce was partially dragged down the driveway and suffered cuts and scratches to her left knee and foot.

Snow became belligerent and aggressive when police went to arrest him, pulling away from Tall and jumping up and down to break free from the officer’s grip, according to the police report. Snow also struck Sgt. Steven Hunt in the head, according to the report.

Joyce was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear in court, and Snow was arrested for domestic assault and failure to submit to arrest.

Several residents of Larkin Street went to their vehicles Wednesday morning and found glove compartments and ashtrays had been rummaged through.

According to reports filed by Bangor police Officers Edward Potter and Butch Moor, five unlocked vehicles were entered along the street in Bangor on Tuesday night. Stolen from the vehicles were change and cassette tapes. Outside one home, $1.50 in change was stolen and $15 was stolen outside another residence.

– Compiled by Amanda Dumond and Doug Kesseli of the NEWS staff