LEWISTON – If you’re a burglary suspect holed up inside a building surrounded by police, who do you call for help? You call 911 like everyone else, of course.
A pair of men accused of breaking into the old Durham Town Hall early Monday gave themselves up by calling a police dispatcher to surrender.
At the time, Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department officers and police from Auburn and Lisbon had the building surrounded. The incident ended peacefully with Justin Allen, 22, and Chad Logan, 21, both of Brunswick, arrested and charged with burglary and criminal mischief, both stemming from the entry and damage to that building.
The drama began at 4:30 a.m. when sheriff’s officials responded to a burglary alarm from the Route 136 building. The alarm came in showing that a basement door was open and Detective Reilly Bryant began to investigate.
The basement door appeared to have been kicked in and a window at the front of the building had been smashed, Bryant said. While waiting for backup, the detective got a call from a dispatcher, who reported that a motion alarm had just been triggered inside the building.
“At that point, we began to suspect that someone was still inside,” Bryant said.
More officers arrived and surrounded the building, preparing to attempt communication with people inside the building. Meanwhile, emergency dispatchers got another telephone call.
It was Allen and Logan calling on a cell phone from inside the building, police said.
“They said they were scared and wanted to know what to do,” Bryant said.
Police were happy to accommodate them. They relayed a message that the two men should come outside with their arms in the air and then get down on the ground when instructed to. When they did, Allen and Logan were handcuffed and arrested.
Bryant said the two suspects later told him their car had broken down a short distance from the old Town Hall and that they’d walked there.
“They said they broke in to get shelter from the cold,” Bryant said.
Police said the two men smashed their way in and then, when an alarm began to squeal, they ripped a speaker off the wall to silence it. The effort was futile. The alarm alerted dispatchers who then alerted police.
The building where the break-in occurred is the former site of the Durham Town Office. It is mostly filled with items for a museum these days. Bryant said the officers were happy the two men called to give themselves up. Otherwise, the incident could have dragged out for hours as police tried to determine who they were up against.
“It could have gotten interesting,” Bryant said.
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