An Augusta-area man driving a stolen pickup truck Tuesday allegedly led police on a roughly 40-mile high-speed chase from Waterville to Carmel, where it ended when the truck hit a tree off Interstate 95.

Waterville police Deputy Chief Charles Rumsey said Jason Brown, 29, was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where he remained Tuesday evening. Waterville police planned to charge him with eluding and theft.

“We are going to be seeking a warrant for his arrest with the intention of taking him into custody when he is released from the hospital,” Rumsey said.

State police Lt. Aaron Hayden said just before 6 p.m. that troopers laid spikes near mile marker 172 on I-95, about 10 miles from Bangor, and the truck’s tires began to deflate. The truck, stolen from a Charlie’s vehicle lot in Winthrop, went off the road and struck a tree.

“He had some injuries,” Hayden said of Brown. “The majority of the injuries were self-inflicted. All indications show he was having some sort of a mental health crisis.”

The chase started in Waterville after a woman called police around 3 p.m. and said she was concerned about her ex-boyfriend, who had contacted her after several years and wanted to meet with her at the Hannaford supermarket parking lot at Elm Plaza, according to Rumsey.

“They met and he told her he wanted to give her a vehicle — a red Dodge pickup,” Rumsey said.

She said her ex-boyfriend, identified as Brown, wanted her to go to the boat landing off Water Street to give her the truck; and that while she was driving there, she called her father, who told her to call the police, Rumsey said.

She said it appeared Brown had injured one of his wrists, Rumsey said.

While police were looking for him, they received phone calls from people saying a man was bleeding near the fire station on College Avenue, he said.

Officer Scott Dumas saw a man matching that description running out of the Maine Smoke Shop on College Avenue and being chased by an employee, Rumsey said. The employee yelled that he had stolen items from the store, later identified as a 40-ounce bottle of beer and cigarettes, he said.

The man jumped into a red pickup truck that had blood on the driver’s side, and Dumas pursued him to Chaplin Street, Colby Circle, College Avenue, Hazelwood Avenue and Armory Road, turning off lights and siren and slowing down past George J. Mitchell School. The truck became slowed by traffic, Rumsey said.

The truck, which had no registration plates, then got onto I-95 on Upper Main Street, and Waterville officers pursued it for several miles but discontinued the chase in Pittsfield, he said.

Rumsey said Brown is known to Waterville police and was convicted of domestic-violence assault, operating under the influence and unlawful possession of drugs, among other charges, in the last few years. Hayden, of state police, said charges are pending against Brown.

Amy Calder — 861-9247
acalder@mainetoday.com