Woman, 79, arrested after pursuit

An elderly woman whose license had been taken away for medical reasons reportedly was involved in a hit-and-run accident Thursday and was later arrested after she tried to run a Hampden police cruiser off the road, police said.

Elsie Brown, 79, of Hampden was charged with attempting to elude an officer and operating after suspension.

Brewer police alerted officers in Hampden of a hit-and-run accident involving a vehicle that was registered to Brown.

A Hampden officer spotted the vehicle later Thursday afternoon on U.S. Route 202. When the officer tried to stop her, she didn’t slow down or pull over.

When a second Hampden police cruiser got involved, Brown tried to run the officer off the road, Sgt. Scott Weber said Thursday.

The two officers followed Brown to her home on Western Avenue, where she admitted she was just trying to get home.

“Basically, she wants to drive, but the state has taken her license away,” Weber said.

A 53-year-old Bangor man reported Friday that during “a bender” in late August, he passed out in the woods behind the Acadia Recovery Community and someone took his checkbook and false teeth.

The man told Bangor police Officer George Spencer that his checkbook had been in his pocket and his teeth had been in his mouth at the time they were stolen.

He told Spencer that he didn’t know who took them, but his bank required that he file a police report on the missing checkbook. The teeth have the man’s name on them.

A Bangor man initially insisted to police late Thursday night that he hadn’t left his apartment for two hours, even though witnesses – including a woman who had been a passenger in the pickup truck he was driving – said otherwise.

Several Bangor police officers were called to the scene of an accident that occurred on Broadway near Husson Avenue. But the scene moved down the street. A maroon GMC pickup truck involved in the accident drove off with the other vehicle, a Cadillac Escalade, in pursuit.

Bangor police Officer Kerry Libby reported finding the vehicles near the Morningside apartment complex, with a man and a woman arguing outside the pickup truck.

The man, identified as James Wiles Jr., 32, went into his apartment, where he then told police he had been for at least two hours.

His passenger later told police that Wiles had been driving, confirming what the other driver involved in the accident told Bangor police Officer Jason Stuart. Wiles would eventually admit to being drunk, but only as a passenger in the pickup truck.

He was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident.

Compiled by BDN reporters Eric Russell and Doug Kesseli