BRISTOL — The Bristol Police Department reported three recent arrests.
On Jan. 3 at 12:25 p.m. police arrested Thomas John Coleman, 18, of Bristol at a Basin Street residence on a warrant for escape. The Vermont Department of Corrections had issued the warrant on Dec. 30. Bristol police lodged Coleman at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility.
Separately, a different Bristol man on Jan. 8 found himself under arrest for the second time in three weeks. Bristol police cited Samuel Lewis Hellmuth, 36, into court for violating a relief from abuse order and violating conditions of release issued by a judge from a previous arrest on the same charge.
Police were dispatched to a North Street residence on the afternoon of Jan. 7, responding to a report that Hellmuth was at the home in violation of an abuse prevention order. When officers arrived, Hellmuth had already left the scene on foot. He turned himself in Jan. 8 and was cited to appear in court at a later date.
Hellmuth was initially issued the relief from abuse order Dec. 20, and was arrested just hours later on suspicion of violating that order, in the early hours of Dec. 21, Bristol police report.
On Jan. 10 at around 4 p.m., police arrested Joshua Martell, 28, of Bristol on suspicion of retail theft. Police responded to Rite Aid on Prince Lane after receiving a report of suspicious activity. The officer spoke with Martell outside of the store, and Martell turned over a watch battery and retrieved the empty packaging that police said he had hidden outside the store            . The officer cited Martell into Addison County Superior Court to answer the charge of retail theft.
Meanwhile, the police department’s Facebook site included a report that the Bristol Historical Society created a display at the National Bank of Middlebury about the history of the Bristol Police Department, which was formed in May 1903. In the display are some photos of officers and former chiefs of police. This display was created by members of the historical society using information obtained by officers and Bristol Police Advisory Board members in 2002 along with other research of historical society members.