2 mall store managers charged with assault

BANGOR – A manager and assistant manager at a Bangor Mall clothing store face assault charges after it was reported they confronted an apparently rude customer and attacked her in another mall store.

Megan Harrigan, 21, and Jessica Bickford, 22, both from Orland, also have been charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the April 6 incident. They are scheduled to appear in 3rd District Court in Bangor on May 7.

Since the incident at the Filene’s store, Harrigan and Bickford have been banned from Bangor Mall and have lost their jobs, reported a district director for Wet Seal, which operated the Contempo Casuals store where the two had been employed.

Bickford was the manager and Harrigan the assistant manager on duty at Contempo Casuals when they said a 17-year-old customer was rude to them in the store. The girl tried on two items, but didn’t buy them and before leaving the store told the two managers, “nice piercings.” The girl left with her boyfriend, then headed in the direction of Filene’s.

Harrigan, who is studying to become a police officer, told the investigating officer that she was angered by the rudeness of the girl and set off with Bickford to find her, locating the 17-year-old in the junior department at Filene’s.

During the brief verbal confrontation, the girl asked who Harrigan’s manager was and Harrigan held up her store identification and stuck it in the teen-ager’s face.

About 20 seconds into the verbal confrontation, the fight began, according to police.

Bickford claimed that she tried to intervene between the two but couldn’t get hold of either Harrigan or the girl. After reviewing a videotape of the incident, Bangor police Officer Larry Morrill noted that Bickford was seen grabbing the 17-year-old’s hair and pulling it. When she lost her grip on the girl’s hair, Bickford grabbed it again, according to the police report.

The fight ended as Filene’s store security arrived, first thinking that the other managers had tracked down a shoplifter.

Morrill said the 17-year-old’s arms were red and that she had large scratches on the back of her neck and upper left shoulder, scratches that were red almost to the point of bleeding. The girl’s left eye was swollen and she apparently lost some hair.

Bickford suggested that they had been pursuing the teen-ager because of stolen property, but acknowledged to Morrill that the girl had left the changing room with everything she had been seen going in with. Bickford also admitted that they violated store policy by pursuing the girl.

Cheryl Dodge, district director for Wet Seal, said Wednesday evening that the company did not condone what she described as the individual actions and “bad choices” of the former managers. She said the company sympathizes with the injured girl and is “completely on the side of the victim.”

On Tuesday, Contempo Casuals formally changed its name to Wet Seal, which Dodge said was to capitalize on the success of the Wet Seal name. She said the name change has been in the works for months and that a similar store at the Maine Mall in South Portland is also to undergo the name change.