Couple’s argument leads to summons

A Bangor woman said she fended off her former live-in boyfriend with a baseball bat after an argument turned physical Thursday evening.

The 19-year-old woman said that 19-year-old Michael Tinkham became angry at her when she refused to give him a cigarette and a ride to his parents’ home in Glenburn. She told Officer Edward A. Mercier that Tinkham forced her head down toward the steering wheel, but she managed to get a baseball bat from under the seat and pushed him back with it.

They both got out of the car. She said he grabbed the bat from her and threw it down the road and came after her, saying he was going to kill her. Tinkham also allegedly shoved her onto the hood of the car and then into a snowbank, according to the police report.

Tinkham said that he took the baseball bat from her after she tried to hit him with it. Mercier summoned Tinkham on a charge of assault.

Wet tread marks on the westbound lane of Center Street in Old Town showed that a vehicle had crossed into the eastbound lane and then back into the correct lane.

When Old Town police Sgt. Michael Hashey caught up with the truck about 2:30 a.m. Friday, it spun out just after passing Elm Street and went sideways into the opposite lane. It then continued up the hill at 45 mph before returning to the westbound lane.

Hashey pulled the truck over, but it continued across a lawn on the other side of the road from the Starlight Palace before coming to a stop.

Hashey said the driver, Eric S. Smith, 19, of Bangor, smelled of alcohol, admitted to drinking beer earlier and swayed during field sobriety tests. Hashey arrested Smith on a charge of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants and reported that the man’s blood alcohol content registered 0.21 percent, or more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Smith was apparently surprised that he hadn’t been alerted to the presence of the police officer before he was stopped. “I thought my radar detector would go off,” he told Hashey.

Bangor police officers at the police station early Friday morning were alerted to a caller on the Emergency 911 line who was repeatedly swearing at the dispatcher.

The dispatcher recognized the voice on the other end as that of Kenneth C. Lawrence, 29, who because of bail conditions was prohibited from even calling on the emergency line unless it was an emergency. Officer Eric Tourtelotte went with other officers to Lawrence’s residence at 183 Harlow St., No. 115, and arrested him on a charge of violation of bail conditions.

Lawrence was also prohibited from possessing or consuming alcohol, although Tourtelotte reported finding beer cans inside the apartment and he noted the strong odor of alcohol coming from Lawrence’s breath.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli