AUGUSTA — A Newcastle woman allegedly bit a police officer on the hand Saturday during the Women’s March on Maine rally at the Capitol.
Capitol Police Chief Russell Gauvin said one of his officers working at the rally was bitten on the hand when he was trying to get a topless woman down off a pillar.
“There was a woman who was standing on one of the pillars bare-chested, and the officer asked her to get down,” Gauvin said.
In Maine, Gauvin said, there is no prohibition against women going topless. Rather, he said, it was a safety move.
“We were trying to get people down from everywhere,” he said. “People were trying to climb all sorts of things to see better. It was a safety issue. The crowd around her assumed it was because she had taken her shirt off.”
The topless woman was not identified.
Gauvin said Officer Alan Carr tried to grab the belt loop on the woman’s pants when he was bitten by another woman.
Initially, the crowd would not allow officers to get close to that woman, he said, but after the rally broke up, Teresa Frisbie-Calder, 64, was issued a summons on a charge of assault.
Kelly Spence, who was also attending the rally and standing nearby, said an officer asked the topless woman to get down and cover up because children were present. Spence said crowd members told the officer that toplessness is legal in Maine. Other officers arrived, and one tried to get the woman off the pillar by pulling on the waistband of her jeans.
While she didn’t see the alleged assault, Spence said she did see the officer tell the woman on the pillar that toplessness was illegal.
Gauvin said Carr was treated on the scene by Augusta Fire and Rescue, which had responded to help someone who had apparently suffered a seizure. After the event, Gauvin said, Carr went to the hospital where the wound was cleaned and he was given an antibiotic.
Attempts to reach Frisbie-Calder Monday weren’t immediately successful.
Jessica Lowell — 621-5632
Twitter: @JLowellKJ
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