Driver arrested after brief chase on Interstate

What began as a ride downtown became a brief high-speed chase with Bangor police late Thursday night where speeds for the lead car reached an estimated 130 mph on Interstate 95.

Derek R. Lacadie, 19, of Milford was arrested after he pulled over his sports car along the Hammond Street offramp after passing other motorists with a cruiser in the distance behind him, siren sounding and blue lights flashing.

Police first noticed the 1991 Nissan 300 ZX sports car on Broadway, stopped at a red light ahead of them near the I-95 southbound on ramp about 10 p.m. The car, sporting the vanity license plate 2TURBOZ, accelerated rapidly as it turned onto the interstate, prompting police to follow it and try to catch up to it.

But Officers James Hassard and Rob Angelo reported that they couldn’t keep pace with the car, even when they were doing 110 mph. The Nissan was passing other vehicles and pulling ahead of them, reaching a speed that Angelo estimated to be 130 mph.

Then, off in the distance, the officers could see the red of brake lights and the officers made up some of the distance as Lacadie slowed to turn off the Hammond Street offramp. Lacadie pulled over and the officers pulled in behind him.

Lacadie apparently was unsure why police stopped him, although he admitted he thought he was driving a little faster than the speed limit. Lacadie told police he thought he had been going about 70 mph in a 55-mph zone.

The officers had Lacadie step out of the car and arrested him, charging him with criminal speed and driving to endanger.

His sole passenger, only identified as a 16-year-old girl from Alton, shed some light on the situation. She told police that the incident started out as just a drive downtown and that although she knew they were going well above the speed limit, she didn’t know how fast. And apparently they both knew that the police were behind them.

She told the officers that when they were stopped at the red light on Broadway, she mentioned to Lacadie that the police were behind them.

“Ya, I know,” Lacadie told her.

The police towed the sports car, but gave the girl a ride back to her car that she had left parked in Bangor’s downtown.

Bangor police were called to Eastern Maine Medical Center on Friday afternoon for a report of a woman that the hospital security wanted removed from an entrance to the emergency room.

Officer Christopher Blanchard reported finding Rosemary Jeanbart, 33, of Bangor on the ER ramp and repeatedly asked her to leave. She repeatedly refused.

Defiant, she told police, “I am either going to get deported or go to jail,” according to the police report. She went to jail. Blanchard charged her with criminal trespass.

A Bangor woman claimed that a former friend of hers knocked her over as she was walking down Essex Street and he was on a bicycle.

The woman also said that after knocking her down, Wallace J. Moran, 56, yelled at her, calling her a thief, and then grabbed her around her upper body, like a bear hug. She said that Moran falsely believes that she sold her sister’s furniture.

The incident occurred on Sunday. Moran was located on Wednesday and summoned on a charge of assault.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli