BANGOR, Maine — A Brooks woman has sued a Maine state trooper in U.S. District Court, alleging he kicked in her door and used excessive force without probable cause to arrest her earlier this year.
Rebecca C. Abeyta, 37, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and attorney’s fees over an incident on May 16, when Trooper Thomas N. Bureau II arrested her after he responded to a noise complaint at her home.
Also named in the complaint were Col. Robert A. Williams, chief of the Maine State Police, and Bureau’s supervisor, whose name was not known, alleging they did not properly supervise Bureau.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Abeyta’s attorney, Michael Waxman of Portland.
Timothy Feeley, spokesman for the Maine attorney general’s office, which is tasked with defending troopers, declined to comment Wednesday on the lawsuit.
“We have only just received this [lawsuit] and have not reviewed the allegations,” he said in an email.
Bureau responded about 12:55 a.m. May 16 to a noise complaint, the lawsuit said. When no one answered the trooper’s knock on the front door, he shined his flashlight in a window on the left side of the house. Bureau identified himself as a state trooper when he heard movement inside the room.
Abeyta, who had turned down the music, stuck her head out the front door but refused to come out of her house or give the trooper her name and date of birth, the complaint alleged. After she told the trooper he would need to get a warrant to obtain the information, Abeyta tried to close the door.
“Bureau then ‘kicked the door a total of three times, the door opened and [he] grabbed [Mrs. Abeyta] by her arm and told her she was under arrest,’” the complaint said. The trooper was able to pull her out of the house and onto the porch.
“Bureau then engaged in a physical struggle with Ms. Abeyta, in which she fell backwards onto the porch, got up on her hands and knees, and then she rolled down the front steps of the house after Bureau pulled her right arm out from under her,” the lawsuit alleged.
Abeyta was treated at Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast for a sprained shoulder and foot injury because of glass shards in her foot. She was charged with assault, refusing to submit to arrest, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, the complaint said. The assault and criminal mischief charge were dismissed.
The lawsuit alleged Bureau deprived Abeyta of her constitutional rights to be secure in her home against unreasonable searches and seizures, bodily integrity, be free of the use of unreasonable force, substantive and procedural due process and be free from arrest except upon a finding of probable cause she had committed a crime.
The complaint also alleged Bureau “has been disciplined or should have been disciplined numerous time for violations of citizens’ Fourth Amendment right of privacy, excessive use of force and/or inappropriate and unlawful or unconstitutional conduct.”
The Maine attorney general’s office has 21 days to answer the complaint.