A Bangor police officer who tried to curtail a woman’s attempts to cut herself with a knife became the target of the woman’s rage, police said.

Despite being ordered to drop the knife, the resident of the mental health home on Harlow Street continued to shred her pants with the knife and then flung the knife at him, reported Officer James Dearing. The woman, Sonya Robbins, 43, appeared very agitated and intoxicated, according to the police report.

Dearing had drawn his gun and ordered Robbins to stop, but she refused, hurling a comment at Dearing and then the knife. Dearing was standing by the doorway with two other officers nearby, 10 to 12 feet from Robbins who was seated at the kitchen table.

The officer said that there was little he could do to deflect the knife except to move sideways. The knife hit him anyway, penetrating the top of his left wrist. The cut, about one-third of an inch wide and just as deep, started to bleed.

Dearing and two other officers then rushed Robbins, took her to the floor and handcuffed her. She was charged with elevated aggravated assault and assault on a police officer.

A woman flagged down a Bangor police officer early Wednesday morning and reported that her ex-boyfriend had assaulted her and was breaking things inside her apartment.

The woman said that although they were no longer seeing each other, her ex-boyfriend was staying with her for the summer. He is a student at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield and she is a student at Husson College.

After flagging down Sgt. Larry Weber at the intersection of Third and Cedar streets at 2 a.m. Wednesday, the 22-year-old woman said that former boyfriend Hiro Asato, 18, had become upset earlier because she hadn’t been feeling well and because she had been using the computer too much.

She said he pushed her and then started breaking things in her Warren Street apartment, including two fans, a mirror and her CD player. She told Weber that she tried to call police on her cellphone but that he took it from her and broke it and then broke her other phone.

Confronted about the incident, Asato admitted to the destruction, claiming he broke them simply because they were there, reported Officer Steve Jordan. He denied, however, breaking the phone while his former girlfriend was trying to call someone, telling Jordan that he didn’t think she was trying to call anyone.

In addition to assault and criminal mischief, Jordan charged Asato with obstructing the report of a crime for trying to prevent his ex-girlfriend from contacting authorities.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli