LIVERMORE FALLS – Reserve police Officer Thomas Plourde of Jay was injured Saturday while chasing a man on foot through the woods after a high speed car chase, Police Chief Ernest Steward said Monday.
Plourde was in a patrol car parked on Main Street with full-time officer Joe Sage a little after 10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, when a blue Nissan drove by “at a high rate of speed,” going about 38 mph in a 25 mph zone, Steward said.
Sage and Steward began an approximately 20-minute chase on routes 133 and 17, through Livermore Falls and into Fayette, after the driver of the Nissan, Aaron Breton of Readfield, refused to stop.
At one point during the chase, Steward said, the Nissan was clocked going more than 85 mph in a 45 mph zone.
With the help of officers from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department, Sage and Plourde cornered Breton in a field in Fayette.
After opening his car door into the Livermore Falls police cruiser, Breton ran away from the officers and had gotten about 150 yards into the woods when he was finally caught by Sage.
Plourde, 30, stepped into a hole while chasing Breton and pulled his hamstring. He was treated at Franklin Memorial Hospital on Saturday night and released.
While Steward said Plourde was in “a lot of pain” on Saturday and Sunday, he was back able to go back to work Monday.
Breton, 24, was charged with a second offense operating under the influence, eluding a police officer, driving to endanger, and criminal speed, Steward said.
“Eluding the police is a class C felony crime,” Steward said Monday.
“It doesn’t happen that often anymore,” he added, but said in the past few years “we started seeing an increase in this again.”
He commented on the futility of trying to outrun the police. “It’s hard to outrun a radio,” he said. “We had Kennebec and Jay coming to help us out.”
Running, he said, is “just compounding the problem.”
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