A Maine couple was charged with drunken driving after allegedly leading police on a 20-mile chase through Oxford County with their three children with them in a pickup truck on Thursday.
State Trooper Jason Wing reported that the pursuit of suspects Tyler Shorty and Amanda Pingree went from Andover to Richardson Lake in Township C, sometimes on roads not maintained in winter, on Thursday night, with the truck at one point stopping so that Pingree could take the wheel. Wing didn’t know about the children, ages 15 months to age 11, until he stopped the pickup, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Maine Game Wardens, U.S. Border Patrol Agents and sheriffs’ deputies from Franklin and Oxford counties also participated, McCausland said in a release.
Shorty, 31, of Oakland, and Pingree, 34, of Andover, were both charged with operating under the influence. Shorty was also charged with operating after suspension, operating a vehicle with a suspended registration, failing to stop, eluding, driving to endanger and endangering the welfare of a child, McCausland said.
Pingree was issued a summons for operating a vehicle with a suspended registration.