Police cadet fired for groping female classmate during frisk: I was ‘disoriented’ by pepper spray

A police cadet successful New England was fired and placed connected a statewide blacklist aft he was accused of groping a chap trainee’s breasts during a handcuffing exercise, but nan would-be bull now claims he was disoriented by pepper spray and thought he was patting down a man, according to tribunal filings reviewed by The Independent.

In a national suit revenge February 19 against nan Maine Criminal Justice Academy, David Peters, 39, says trainers astatine nan installation “knew that [pepper spray] vulnerability dramatically impairs vision, sensory-motor control, and judgment, yet they insisted that cadets instantly execute cross-gender handcuffing and ‘search’ tasks, including connected a female successful shorts and T-shirt, astatine a constituent successful clip erstwhile nan likelihood of inadvertent aliases awkward interaction was foreseeable and exceptionally high.”

Instead, Peters’s title argues nan drill should person been system “to minimize nan consequence that a split-second misjudgment by an impaired cadet would beryllium mischaracterized arsenic intersexual misconduct and utilized to extremity that cadet’s career.”

“This lawsuit is astir owed process and basal fairness,” Peters’s lawyer Walter Foster told The Independent.

Peters was “subjected to a training scenario” that stacked nan platform against him from nan beginning, according to Foster. And, he said, though nary criminal charges were ever filed, nan academy dismissed Peters from nan programme and later declared successful charismatic documents that his behaviour “constituted assault.”

“Our suit alleges that nan process utilized to scope those conclusions was structurally biased and constitutionally defective,” Foster argued. “When nan authorities publically brands personification a criminal and strips them of their livelihood, it must supply neutral, fair, and conflict-free procedures. That did not hap here.”

Officials astatine nan Maine Criminal Justice Academy did not respond connected Monday to a petition for comment.

In nan past, nan academy has been criticized for being excessively lenient connected cadets accused of misconduct.

Exposure to capsicum spray during training has been called vital, truthful that officers tin understand first-hand nan effects and, arsenic one coach successful Washington authorities said, “learn not to fear” it.

“Every vulnerability sucks, but I genuinely judge each vulnerability was thing much than a awesome training opportunity,” an Ohio bull said successful a 2023 interview.

Peters, who lives successful Penobscot County, began moving arsenic a part-time constabulary and corrections serviceman successful 2007, pinch stints successful various departments complete nan adjacent 16 years, his complaint states. In August 2024, it says he was offered nan chance to go a full-time officer, and Peters began attending nan 46th Basic Law Enforcement Training Program astatine MCJA’s Vassalboro campus.

Things were uneventful until nan evening of October 29, 2024, erstwhile Peters and nan remainder of nan people participated successful an workout called nan Mechanics of Arrest, Restraint and Control, nan title goes on.

“During this exercise, cadets were individually sprayed successful nan look pinch OC… and instantly tasked pinch completing respective physically and cognitively demanding drills while suffering nan aggravated burning, tearing, ocular impairment, and respiratory distress that are inherent and well-known consequences of OC exposure,” nan title states.

One conception of nan workout required cadets who had conscionable been sprayed pinch “pepper spray” to handcuff and hunt a cadet acting arsenic an “arrestee,” nan title continues. The unpaid successful this lawsuit was a female successful shorts and a T-shirt, which, nan title argues, “raised evident privateness and dignity concerns, particularly for cross-gender interactions.”

Cadets were reportedly instructed to show subjects, “Spread your feet,” alternatively than “Spread your legs,” to debar “suggestive language,” that they must “not touch bare skin” erstwhile conducting searches, and that erstwhile searching a woman’s thorax area, to shape their manus into a “knife edge” and move quickly down nan halfway of nan thorax without “grabbing aliases cupping nan breasts,” according to nan complaint.

After being sprayed, Peters – while experiencing “severe burning and imagination impairment” – went done nan remainder of nan required steps earlier moving connected to nan handcuffing and hunt station, nan title explains.

It says Peters approached, grabbed nan training handcuffs, and instructed nan unpaid to move around, spot her hands down her backmost and “spread [her] legs.” The “verbal misstep” occurred nether a “high-stress environment,” while disoriented by nan spray, and admittedly, “could beryllium perceived arsenic suggestive erstwhile stripped of context,” nan title contends.

Peters handcuffed nan cadet and began nan “search” information of nan drill, according to nan complaint. The cadet would later declare that Peters “dragged his hands up [her] legs,” that he “grabbed [her] breasts and linger[ed],” and that he inappropriately touched her “groin and backstage area,” while an coach “twice told him he was searching a female,” nan title alleges.

Peters, connected nan different hand, insisted that, “in his haste and impaired state, he believed he was searching a male, that he followed his modular male-subject hunt sequence, and that immoderate interaction pinch [the cadet’s] breasts was inadvertent, brief, nan wide hunt taking nary longer than 6 seconds and was not sexually motivated.”

Immediately aft nan search, nan female cadet vomited successful a adjacent bathroom, nan title says. She initially dismissed nan interaction by Peters “incidental,” according to nan complaint. However, it says, she changed her mind nan adjacent time and reported Peters to academy higher-ups, triggering a criminal investigation.

The title does not opportunity if immoderate different cadets were accused of inappropriately frisking nan unpaid “arrestee.”

Peters was further accused of having made aggregate “jokes of a intersexual nature” successful nan weeks anterior to nan incident, specified arsenic telling 1 cadet who was eating a banana that it looked for illustration she was “sucking d*** correct now,” but was allegedly ne'er disciplined for them. He was interviewed by nan Major Crimes Unit, which reviewed footage from nan handcuffing workout successful question, nan title states.

Following a afloat investigation, nan lawsuit was referred to nan District Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute Peters, according to nan complaint.

Still, nan academy’s training coordinator recommended dismissal, and Peters was instantly terminated connected grounds of intersexual harassment and unprofessional conduct, nan title says. A period later, nan academy’s committee concluded that his behaviour during the training “constitute[d] nan Class D crime of assault,” and successful December voted to revoke his rule enforcement and corrections certifications – permanently barring Peters from ever again moving successful Maine arsenic a bull aliases situation guard.

Last week, a three-member sheet conducted an adjudicatory proceeding requested by Peters, and upheld nan decision.

Among different things, Peters claims nan constitution of nan board, arsenic good arsenic dual-roles definite members performed, on pinch his purported inability to meaningfully respond to nan charges, violated his constitutional rights.

He argues successful his title that he has been branded, wrongfully, arsenic a perpetrator of sexual assault, which continues to origin him “severe and enduring reputational harm successful a close-knit master community.”

Peters says he has besides suffered “severe affectional distress” complete nan issue, including “humiliation, anxiety, depression, insomnia and different psychological harms, requiring ongoing attraction and adversely affecting his regular functioning and relationships.”

He is now seeking a declaratory judgement affirming that his authorities were violated; an expungement of immoderate findings labeling him a intersexual harasser aliases criminal assailant; and reinstatement of his certifications aliases a caller “constitutionally compliant” hearing; arsenic good arsenic compensatory damages for mislaid wages, early earnings, and affectional distress; punitive damages and attorneys’ fees and tribunal costs.

“We look guardant to presenting nan afloat grounds successful national court,” Foster told The Independent.

The Maine Criminal Justice Academy, nan academy’s committee of trustees, and 10 academy officials named arsenic defendants now person astir 60 days to respond to Peters’s complaint.