35-Year-Old Man Arrested After Leading Central Maine Police on Vehicle, Foot Chase

An area man was taken into custody by police on Thursday following a vehicle chase that turned into a foot chase.

According to an article published by the Kennebec Journal, an off-duty officer from the Skowhegan Police Department noticed the suspect's car with the wrong plates attached to it at the Hannaford grocery store on Madison Ave in Skowhegan on Thursday.

The newspaper reports that Skowhegan Officer Alex Burns then attempted to make a traffic stop on the vehicle, but the driver refused to pull over. A pursuit then began with police attempting to stop the vehicle as it fled through town.

As the chase through Skowhegan reached speeds of up to 65 miles per hour on city streets, police pursued the vehicle onto Norridgewock Avenue where the suspect then drove the Hyundai Sonata, which had plates registered to a Nissan, into a field before fleeing on foot.

The Kennebec Journal says that at that time the suspect fled from the car and into the woods, however Skowhegan Police were able to catch up to the suspect and take him into custody without any further issue.

Police charged 35-year-old, Jerry Michael Libby, a transient, with criminal speeding, driving to endanger and refusing to submit to arrest.

The KJ reported that a passenger who was in the vehicle, Connie Richards, 37 of Madison, was taken to the hospital because police suspected she was hiding drugs inside of her body.

The KJ went on to explain that Skowhegan Police Department's new drug-sniffing K9 was called to the scene, conducting his first official search since becoming a certified police K9 unit.

All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.