A traffic stop early Thursday morning led to the arrest of a serial drunk driver.

At around 1 a.m., Officer James Ryser pulled over Brian D. Harvasy for a marked lanes violation just off Main Street near the on-ramp to Route 495.

A subsequent investigation led to the arrest of Harvasy, a Barker Road resident, on charges of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs. According to police records, Harvasy has three previous convictions for OUI.

He was scheduled to be arraigned in Lowell District Court.

Warrant arrest

On Wednesday, Aug. 25, just after noon, police arrested a Billerica woman, Mary E. Lord, on an outstanding warrant at her Berkely Street home. Details of the warrant were not available.

Call it a hit and  ... roll?

On Thursday afternoon, a woman called the Tewksbury Police Station to report that she had been the victim of a hit and run in the parking lot of Wal-Mart. The alleged incident took place while she was in the store shopping.

According to the police report, the woman said a second woman witnessed the incident and gave her the suspect vehicle's license plate number. A run of the plate indicated that the car belonged to a Carlisle resident and Tewksbury Police had their counterparts in Carlisle attempt to contact the vehicle's owner.

In the meantime, however, Officer Karen Capuano responded to the Wal-Mart parking lot to investigate.

Officer Capuano determined that a hit and run did not, in fact, occur. Rather, the damage to the caller's vehicle had been caused by a runaway shopping cart.