BRUNSWICK — A Lewiston man was arrested Thursday after a chase involving two stolen cars, a set of spike mats and a police tracking dog. 

Daniel Chamberland, 31, was arrested after a car and foot chase and charged with theft, reckless conduct, burglary, receiving stolen property, criminal mischief and attaching false plates. He was also charged with failing to appear in court on an earlier theft charge based in Lewiston, according to Brunswick police. 

The drama began at about 3 a.m. Thursday when a caller reported that a suspicious man was asking residents in the area of 226 River Road to use their phones after he ran out of gas. 

When police went there, they found a vehicle in the driveway with a plate that had been reported stolen out of Lewiston. While police were looking into that, they got a report that another vehicle had just been stolen in the area. 

When police spotted that stolen vehicle, the driver refused to stop, investigators said, and a chase got underway. While they were pursuing the vehicle, police said, the driver threw several items out of the car. 

When the chase began to involve high speeds, police broke it off. However, the driver of the stolen car, who appeared to be lost, turned around and started driving back toward the officers parked at the side of the road. 

Police put down a spike mat in the roadway that disabled the stolen car, but the driver took off on foot. Brunswick police then brought in their tracking dog and were able to locate the suspect, now identified as Chamberland, a man with an extensive criminal history in the Lewiston area, including a 2018 charge that he dragged a woman behind his car during a drug deal gone wrong. 

In the 2018 case, Chamberland ultimately plead to two misdemeanors, reckless conduct and unlawful drug trafficking, and was sentenced to a total of 60 days in jail.

After Brunswick police caught up with Chamberland on Thursday, he was taken to Maine Medical Center for a minor ankle injury suffered during the chase, police said. He was then taken to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland where bail was set at $5,000. 

Since the arrest, the investigation into Chamberland’s activities has expanded to include police in Topsham and Lewiston. Police in Lewiston have been investigating reports of vehicle thefts in that city, including the theft of a motorcycle stolen from Green Street earlier in the week. 

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