A jury in federal court has acquitted a Portland police officer of an allegation that she used excessive force in the October 2014 arrest of a Peaks Island woman.
Officer Cynthia Rumery-Taylor was acquitted Tuesday, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Portland. Judge John H. Rich III presided over the three-day trial.
Mary Lou Wendell alleged that Taylor used excessive force on Oct. 14, 2014, during what court documents describe as a well-child check.
Assistant Police Chief Vern Malloch said in a news release announcing the jury’s decision Wednesday that Wendell “resisted detention.”
She was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and refusing to submit to detention or arrest, both felonies. Malloch said the district attorney dismissed the charges after a six-month deferred disposition.
Wendell rejected Malloch’s description of events that night, saying in an email that the police news release “was designed to send me a message and to hurt me and my family further.”
Taylor is a 29-year veteran of the police department.
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