A routine patrol stop was anything but routine early on the morning of July 26 when a motorist fled from Brewer police on foot and then squared off with a pursuing officer.

Officer David Lord stopped the pickup truck for speeding, pulling it over about 1:10 a.m. next to an empty lot on Maple Street, close to the police station. The driver got out of the truck, leaving the passenger inside, and began walking toward the front of the truck, according to the police report.

Ordered to stop, driver Adrian Hanscom ran.

Lord chased Hanscom, 26, of Bucksport, a short distance to the nearby hedges where Hanscom turned around and squared off with Lord, according to the report.

With the closest police backup about two minutes away and Hanscom and his passenger to contend with, Lord ordered Hanscom to the ground at gunpoint. Hanscom didn’t comply at first, and required repeated demands before he did.

As Lord was handcuffing the struggling Hanscom, the pickup truck’s passenger began yelling at Lord, potentially escalating the situation, according to police.

Backup arrived and Hanscom, still belligerent, was taken to the Penobscot County Jail where corrections officers later placed him in a solitary security holding cell, according to the police report.

Hanscom refused to tell police who he was, but his passenger provided police with some information, including that Hanscom’s license had been suspended and that Hanscom had been drinking alcohol as recently as two minutes before Lord had stopped them. Police learned the identity of Hanscom, who was wanted on a warrant and who had had his license revoked, according to police.

Hanscom was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants, operating a motor vehicle as a habitual offender, failure to give correct name, failure to submit to arrest and with operator of a motor vehicle consuming alcohol.

Hanscom refused to take an Intoxilyzer test and wouldn’t sign the summonses he was given, which netted him five counts of refusing to sign a uniform summons and complaint.

A motorist stopped in Brewer for erratic driving backed up into the police cruiser that had stopped him, according to police.

The incident occurred on South Main Street, where Officer Roger Hershey had stopped a red Dodge Shadow about 3 :45 p.m. July 26. Hershey pulled the car over and then pulled in behind it, keeping a distance of about 10 feet. Hershey was getting out of his cruiser when he noticed the car was backing up, according to the police report.

Hershey quickly got back into the cruiser in the hopes of backing it up and avoiding a collision. But another police cruiser had pulled in behind Hershey’s cruiser, leaving the officer little to do but brace for impact.

No damage was done to the cruiser, although there was an estimated $100 in damage to the car, according to the police report.

Hershey reported that the driver, identified as Phillip Willette, 76, of Bucksport, apparently didn’t realize he had struck the cruiser. Willette had difficulty walking once out of the car and according to the police report leaned on his car as he walked. Willette failed or couldn’t complete field sobriety tests and needed the assistance of two police officers to keep him standing up as he walked to the police cruiser.

Hershey arrested Willette, charging him with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicants. His blood alcohol content registered 0.24 percent – or three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent – on the Intoxilyzer test.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter

Doug Kesseli