An employee working behind the counter at the Circle K in Allenstown was shocked Monday night when a four-door sedan plowed through the window facing the gas pumps, shattering the glass and causing minor injuries to at least two customers inside the convenience store.
The driver, 55-year-old Theresa Caplette of Pembroke, was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. She was not hurt, Allenstown police Chief Michael Stark said by phone, adding that one customer might have needed stitches.
A police video, released to the media, shows the entire episode unfolding, from a typical, quiet scene at night inside a convenience store, to one of panic and chaos.
“This is pretty rare around here,” Stark said.
The video, split into four quadrants, shows the employee, dressed in the company’s trademark red shirt, working near the register at 8:23 p.m. An unseen customer near the counter tells the cashier to “Keep the change,” at which point the employee says “Have a good one.”
Seconds later, the car can be seen in the background, headlights off, making a right turn into a parking spot, the cashier completely oblivious to what’s evolving to her right. The car keeps moving forward, crashing through the glass and pushing the counter about 3- or 4-feet from its original position, according to Stark.
With glass scattered on the floor and the area near the register destroyed, the employee can be seen dialing on her cellphone, presumably calling 911. Another section of the video shows two customers near the counter falling to the ground, then fleeing off to the side and out of the picture.
The sounds of breaking glass and screaming are clearly audible, with one of the customers asking another, “Are you okay?” in a terrified, high-pitched voice.
Someone says “Who is it?” seconds before someone else yells, “Call the cops.”
After breaking the window, the surveillance video shows the car backing out of the parking spot and then moving forward back into it, before someone gets out of the car and walks toward the store.
Someone in the store, presumably talking to the driver, can be heard asking, “Are you on drugs?”
“People inside the store were yelling at her at that point,” Stark said. “I don’t know what she was doing at the Circle K.”
Before police arrived, the video shows a man suggesting that the cashier “Sit down. You got a chair or something?”
A police officer then appears in the video and asks the employee, “Are you okay? A little shaken up, I bet.”
When told where the woman had been standing during the crash, the officer says, “Holy smokes, you’re lucky.”
Stark said Caplette cooperated with police.
“When asked by investigating officers, she agreed to take the standardized field sobriety tests and she was then arrested for driving under the influence,” Stark said in a press release. “She was taken for a blood test and the investigation continues as we await those results.”
A woman who answered the phone Tuesday afternoon at the Circle K said the company had no comment, and she declined to name the woman working behind the register at the time of the crash.
Near the end of the video, an unseen customer can be heard asking the cashier, “This is going to be a dumb question. Do you have a register open?”