Drug robbery suspect killed in shootout

WALDOBORO – A high-speed chase Thursday night involving multiple law enforcement agencies pursuing an armed robbery suspect ended at a Cumberland Farms gas pump in a shootout that killed a Thomaston man.

The identity of the suspect was not disclosed by the Attorney General’s Office, which is handling the case because it involved shootings by Brunswick police and Sagadahoc Sheriff’s Department officers, Don Goulet, commander of the criminal investigation division of Brunswick police, said at the scene.

“There’s a bunch of pieces to this,” Goulet said.

The chase, which covered about 45 miles through three counties, began in Waldoboro around 5:30 p.m. when an armed masked man entered Waltz Pharmacy on Friendship Street demanding narcotics, Detective Sgt. Jason Pease of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department said in Bath, near where shots from the suspect grazed a Bath police cruiser.

According to Pease, about eight people were inside the drugstore when the perpetrator asked for narcotics and then stole drugs “right off the counter.”

An all points bulletin was put out for a purple Chrysler PT Cruiser with a description of the suspect.

Wiscasset police spotted the vehicle, and a high-speed chase with a stream of other police cars followed. Speeds reached 100 mph plus, Pease said, and the suspect went in and out of streets in Bath before going into Shaw’s parking lot where he fired at a Bath police cruiser, grazing the passenger door. The suspect’s vehicle also hit numerous cruisers, he said.

Rubber tire marks could be seen on the parking lot pavement leading to Congress Avenue, where the PT Cruiser stopped on the entrance ramp to Route 1 south. There the suspect jumped out of the car, stopped a woman driving onto the ramp and forced her out of her green Subaru at gunpoint. He then fled in the car.

The chase continued along Route 1 to the Cook’s Corner exit in Brunswick.

Paul Burrows, 53, of Brunswick was filling his red 2001 Mustang with gasoline at the Cumberland Farms pumps when he saw the flashing blue lights coming down the highway, he said.

Then he heard the “rumble” of the stolen vehicle rolling into the pump behind his car, the tires on the stolen car apparently flattened by a police spike mat.

Burrows saw the suspect get out of the car with a gun.

“As soon as I saw that gun, I ran,” he said. “[The suspect] fired at police first. I stayed down until we knew the firing was over.”

Burrows, who had a window of his Mustang shot out, said that he didn’t count how many shots were fired, but that the victim “got a few shots off” before he was killed.

“I’m surprised no one else got hit,” Burrows said. “There was a lot of people around.”

A Papa John’s Pizza and a Cingular store are next to the Cumberland Farms store in the busy Cook’s Corner plaza.

The fatal shots were fired at around 6:45 p.m. Police cordoned off the area where the suspect’s body lay next to the stolen Subaru.

Goulet said the two officers involved in the shooting would be interviewed.

No information about the woman whose car was hijacked was immediately available.