BANGOR, Maine — A local couple reported their Jeep Wrangler stolen back on Nov. 24 after their son, who they said may be using drugs, told his parents he lost the vehicle, according to police.
When Zane M. Harmon, 26, of Bangor, drove the missing Jeep into the parking lot of the Bangor Efficiency Apartments, at 513 Hammond St., at around noon Saturday, Officer Brian Smith noticed.
Smith “was on routine patrol when he parked his car on Webster Avenue North in order to observe 513 Hammond St., which has been documented to have recent drug activity in and around it,” Sgt. Paul Edwards said.
Smith ran the Jeep’s registration and learned the vehicle was reported stolen. The officer then knocked on the door of the apartment that Harmon and a woman entered after they exited the Jeep, and after several minutes Harmon answered.
Harmon told Smith he recently purchased the Jeep and had a sales receipt in the vehicle.
“After several minutes of searching backpacks and small personal safes, it was determined that he could not produce a bill of sale,” Edwards said.
Harmon, who was found with a diverted suboxone strip, was arrested and charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of scheduled drugs. He was taken to the Penobscot County Jail and remained there on Monday, the sergeant said.
The Jeep, which was being used by the son of the owners, was reported stolen one week prior to Harmon’s arrest.
“He thought he parked it somewhere and didn’t know where it was so [he said] it must be stolen,” Edwards said, referring to the son.
The Jeep was returned to its owners, he said.
The Bangor Efficiency Apartments have been a focus of concern for police after several arrests recently at the location, Edwards said.
“Brian [had] a little extra time on his hands, doing his normal patrol work, and decided to [observe the place],” the sergeant said. “It worked out for him. He did good work.”
Not only one apartment they should watch all… lets clean Bangor up!
nice Face
What do we have to do to drive that trashy slumlot out of town?
Get rid of the meth clinics!
It makes more sense to me to get rid of the slum lords.
Now you’re talking sense, all that can be done legally and efficiently. Go right after the OWNERS — start with full building inspections and within days hand the owner a fix it or pay citation. While all that is going on there are laws against owning a premises that creates a public nuisance and owing a dwelling where illegal activities take place — more citations, court appearances, fines. Full tax records, utility bills, current and back taxes, lists of tenants, copies of leases. More inspections.
A dozen city employees doing their jobs by the book, a half dozen cops to walk them through the sticky parts now and then, and an ADA and Judge down with the cause could make most sketchy owners sell or walk away in less than six months. I’ve seen this done in a couple places and it works like a tag-team match.
The tools to TCB are already in place, but nobody seems to want to use them. So who really owns all these sleazy buildings?
Or simply put all the landlords that own the buildings in jail, seize their assets and then burn the buildings down. The tenants can be dealt with then and easily exterminated. That way no one has to house them and we taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill to house them. Once we are done with that we can eliminate the meth clincs in Bangor any other low income housing and finish by eliminating any of these people on TANF, food stamps, HEAP etc. Then Bangor will be good again.
Way to go Adolph! Blue-eyed, blonde-haired folks with out disabilities of even speeding tickets!
(Yes I know you were kidding)
You ask a good question about ‘who really owns these sleazy buildings’. I know of one that was the site of a felony cocaine bust, that belongs to a city official from a neighboring town. I know that these gross green places at the top of Hammond Street hill are owned by a well known Bangor family. That information should be readily available on the city website, so that the public can easily find contact information when they find a landlord behaving irresponsibly in their neighborhood.
The efficiencies are owned by Bernie labree
…and he deliberately rents to folks who bust up his property, cost him money, and devalue his investment.
Do you high minded individuals really believe that if there were no low-end housing units in the City that these people would all move elsewhere?
Another thing many of you non-landlords don’t know… Many of these apartments are rented by young females with small children which appear (on the surface) not to be problem tenants. They move their boyfriends in, and he starts a drug business (or any other kind of illegal operation) and the State of Maine rules make it almost impossible to remove them.
Why don’t you folks get some knowledge before slapping honest folks around.
If you spend anytime at all watching the public access channels or went to a meeting or two you would realize the problem.
Start with the fact that city is paying for most of these druggies rents at the Apartments with government vouchers.
City employees are up there all the time.
Yeah that’s right it must be the owner/business people’s fault there are so many addicts in Bangor.
It is the landlords fault that the City/State/and Feds give these people the money for rent without requiring they are tested for addiction first.
It is obviously the owner’s fault that drugs are present on his property, after all he would not want some nice family in there that wouldn’t bust up the place.
Lets get these fingers out there pointing all directions, EXCEPT the one which demands personal responsibility for drug use.
EVERYONE who points at anyone but the addict is an enabler.
Katz, folks just wanna get rid of the dope fiends and skeezers, not rebuild society — keep it simple. LOL As long as there are cheap places with absentee landlord, there will be people to fill the spaces… Already starting to hear that some of the owners are politically-connected. Can’t make a hundred people straighten up and fly your way, buddy, but it’s possible to go after the vultures that offer havens for drugs and crime…
Ya whip around the word “enabler” like you know what it means, Mr. Katz. So start with giving dope-fiends cheap places to live with no formal security and little worry about the cops?
Here is another point of view though. Right now, we all know where these people live. If you go after the slum lords, evict people, shut down these buildings, then where are all these displaced drug users and addicts going to go? At least now we know where they are, we know to avoid them, and they are only doing harm to themselves. I am not saying the police should turn a blind eye to the activities going on…I like seeing these types taken off the streets, but why spread out the problem even more so around the city when you already know where they tend to hang out?
That being said, I am a strong believer that if you are going to be on the take, then you should be subject to random drug testing. If you fail, then you lose benefits and either go to rehab or jail. We are paying for these people to live and do drugs anyway, so we might as well at least do something about the problem.
You show your true colors with this comment bangorian.
let me know when we start this process I have a name to add to the list!
methadone clinics. not meth clinics. big difference in the two substances. though I agree get rid of them and it would decrease the draw for addicts.
Having worked at one of those facilities I can say only about 25% of the people there are genuinely concerned about making real changes in their life the rest are just in treatment as parole/probation conditions or other reason besides wanted to better themselves.
Does he have chicken pox?
I’m not sure, but it must be itchy.
meth pox
Zombies walk among us.
No, he was force fed hard candy by a blind man with a wrist rocket
Dude, that was really, really lame, honest. Might have been a big hoot back in the school yard, but that was terrible. Been waiting all your life to make that comparison or what, or maybe that was the going laugh about kids with bad acne? LOL AARRGGHH!
Watching Bangor Efficiency Apartments? No Way… I can’t believe anyone would EVER think drugs were there…
Observe the place 24/7 until it’s cleaned up.
Again with the hokey caption — cops watching a known drug spot arrest man for drugs. LOL Might be more interesting as “”Man with drugs too spaced-out to notice two clean-shaven narks in a Crown Victoria…” Just saying.
Why not do what other cities do and let BPD rent one of the efficiencies and turn it into a satellite office?
Get the Ghetto Trash Out! Make it medium income housing….
now if only the rest of the police in this state would take a page from the bangor pd.
this article proves that if the police are out watching for crime instead of for speeders, then crime gets solved, prevented, and punished.
good job BPD,
Family affair:
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2012/10/09/news/bangor/high-bail-set-for-mondays-rite-aid-robbery-suspect/
Good call. You are correct.
hmmm I suspect you are a resident of the dover foxcroft area. maybe sangerville as that is Sir Hiram Maxim’s home town.
instead of using a great inventors name to embroil yourself in online trolling drama starting activities use your own lol!
Another sad story of a son lost to drugs. I recently moved out of Bangor but after being there for over 20 years, I recall seeing so many people transformed from acquaintances and friends to walking zombies, from their drug use; people I no longer even recognized. A friend of my son, an admitted addict whom I had known for years told me he had tried several times to get help but was turned down because he “didn’t qualify”. He then proceeded to get in so much more trouble due to his addiction and I’m guessing will be in jail for some time. Guess he qualifies now. We can blame it all on bad personal choices and throw them all in jail, but as soon as they get out,it’s going to happen again and again.
I suggest that if we really want to stop the cycle of drug abuse, we go after the drug dealers, distributors, growers, cartels and the lab rats that make the stuff, with a vengeance. When caught, throw them in prison for life without parole. People say for every drug dealer caught, two more take their place because the money made in drugs is incredible. That, and the fact that those convicted are slapped on the wrist and bailed out. We are losing an entire generation to drugs and we need to “take out” the ones that are causing it, and redouble our efforts to help those already addicted, because at some point, the “low life scum bags” we read about in the paper might be our own son or daughter.
Has anyone been to Detroit lately?? You think Bangor is bad? Take a walk in any city across this nation?? Check out LA or Miami,, Honolulu… Jobs Jobs and more jobs,, drug test everyone on food stamps S- S- I,, if you flunk your hungry for a year,, flunk twice.,, out of the system for good.. An ideal mine,, to much free time.. Think it’s bad now ?? 4 more years we’ll all be on food stamps,, taking drugs too!! A Goverment big enough to give you anything you want,,, is strong enough to take everything you have!! TJ
Nope. I’ll starve in the street before I ask people like you (through our government) for anything! Also, I won’t be on drugs, no matter which anti-citizen party is in office. Believe it or choose not to, but there are some folks out here who set their own agenda. Neither Fox nor MSNBC run me.
A 26 year old, theiving druggie, with terminal acne. He’ll Never
amount to anything, just put him to sleep.
Acne sufferers do not deserve to be put in the same category as this waste. Those are marks from him picking/scratching at his face (meth makes you feel ‘itchy’ even when you arent).
Rocky, with your attitude you are little better than this poor guy. There but for fortune go you.
Meth Face
WOW, use a better razor dude.
Dude, do you think you may want to consider your drug addiction when it is eating your face away. EWWWWWW
Look at that face, kids. Don’t do meth. It really methes you up.
Do people really believe that Landlords are responsible for these people’s drug use? Just curious how they make that connection…My Landlord has never suggested I use drugs. I wonder if it is POSSIBLE these people had a problem before they chose a low income rental? And I wonder how popular it would be with people who believe in people’s rights if the Landlord hung around all day to police the tenants? I don’t think I’d appreciate my Landlord sitting on my couch all day waiting for me to start using drugs.
To all the young people out there who are just starting to dabble with drugs…Take a real good look at this guys mugshot and now picture your own face looking like that!!! Wish they had a before picture to put next to it.
Indeed. Imagine putting this mug shot next to his High school yearbook photo. Sad…very sad.
Not to mention the mug shot is so flattering. Can’t tell by all the sores on his face that he uses, NO Abuses, drugs…
He doesn’t look like a meth head at all. They should bulldoze the Bangor Efficiency Apartments they have been nothing but a cess pool for years.
Rockland should do this at the Coughlan Apts. just off Rankin Street…..
or Thistledown Apts in Augusta or…………ah
heck. These days might as well put all of Maine under surveillance.
(yes, I know, it’s not that bad but the problem is getting worse every day.)
Kids: His Photo is typical of what happens to your Face and Body with METH use….. UGH….
I don’t know what the statistics are as far as crime/low income housing, but I do know this guy. We went to school together. His brother (who was recently arrested for robbing Rite Aid in Bangor) was also a year ahead of us, and both of them have been heading down this path for a LONNGGG time! In this specific case it has nothing to do with where they are/were living.