Tractor-trailer strikes cars, parking meter on Forest Avenue Friday morning

Passers-by said a tugboat hit cars and scratched a building on Forest Avenue on Friday morning before leaving.

It is not clear how much damage was done, but no one appears to have been injured in the crash.

Portland police did not provide any information until Friday night.

Tracy Hall of Portland said she had just completed a long shift as a certified medical assistant at Maine Medical Center and was returning home around 8 a.m. when she encountered a strange scene in front of 39 Forest Ave public health services.

She pulled out her cell phone and recorded video as a tractor trailer repeatedly tried to get out of the parking lot next to the building, hitting cars, a parking lot, and possibly scraping the building. Some of the cars appear to be severely damaged.

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“He knocked down the parking meter like a twig,” she said.

Hall said she and several others shouted at the driver to stop, but he did not answer.

Eventually, the driver pulled the truck off the plot and drove east toward Congress Street.

A Portland police cruiser appeared less than a minute later and followed the truck, but Hall said he could not see if the officer had caught up with the tractor trailer.

Hall said another officer wrote down her name and phone number, as well as those of other witnesses.

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Police did not release a report of the incident on Friday, and attempts to contact the department’s spokesman by phone and email on Friday night were unsuccessful.

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