LOWELL — Patrolman David Pender today begins serving a six-month suspension without pay in which he must complete anger management training for using unnecessary force against a 16-year-old student he placed in handcuffs at Lowell High School Career Academy last fall.

Pender was also stripped of his school resource officer position and told he can never work in that capacity again.

The order by City Manager Kevin Murphy, which Pender received late Tuesday, also places the 28-year veteran on what equates to probation: If Pender violates any department policy over the next two years, he will immediately serve out the balance of the six-month suspension, also without pay, The Sun has learned.

“What happened was a very unfortunate incident,” said Murphy. “But the action taken against officer Pender was necessary to protect the integrity of the school resource officer position and the Lowell Police Department in general.”

Some top city elected and appointed officials said privately that Murphy should have fired Pender, noting the severity of what happened last September at the school for behaviorally challenged students and the major blemishes on Pender’s personnel record.

Murphy said he was “inclined to terminate” the officer but decided on a less severe punishment when Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan declined to press criminal charges.

Murphy also cited a meeting he and Police Superintendent William Taylor held with Pender in which the officer expressed remorse for his actions.

“I think I am a pretty good judge of character and I believe him when he said he’s sorry,” Murphy said.

A three-month suspension amounts to a $20,000 loss of pay for Pender whose annual salary is listed at $87,000. Pender has been on paid administrative leave since last Nov. 11.

Pender is vice president of the Lowell Police Association. He declined to comment through Officer Francisco Maldonado, the union president. Maldonado also declined to comment.

However, Maldonado said union members will meet Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Mount Pleasant Country Club to consider counting the ballots of a Dec. 7 no-confidence vote in Taylor. Maldonado previously said Taylor has a bias against Pender, but he did not elaborate. Taylor has denied having any bias against Pender.

Lt. Greg Hudon, officer in charge of the police department’s Professional Standards Division, wrote in an 87-page report on the Sept. 15, 2016 incident that: Pender handcuffed the student, ordered a room cleared of any potential witnesses, and then grabbed the boy by the neck, striking him in the head and threatening to spray him with Mace.

The student was suspected of having a bag of marijuana in his pocket.

“Due to the fact that Officer Pender ordered the room cleared, this writer is left with only two witnesses, Officer Pender and (redacted). Officer Pender cannot offer any plausible explanation as to the origin of the marks and bruises,” on the victim, Hudon wrote.

“This fact, coupled with (redacted) statements and the additional medical records and photographs and text messages to his aunt, leaves this writer to draw the following conclusion: Based on all available information, this writer finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the allegation of misconduct is sustained, based on the following violation of the rules and regulations of the Lowell Police Department:”

* Prohibited conduct — unnecessary force, “or the use of more physical force than that which is necessary to accomplish a proper police purpose.”

In his report on the incident, Pender wrote the student refused to empty his pockets and became “loud and confrontational.” The officer said the student raised his hand to his chest and refused to put it hand down. Noting the student’s “agitated state,” Pender said he feared the student might assault him.

District Attorney Ryan decided against pressing criminal charges because the boy’s father “steadfastly maintained” he did not want to pursue criminal charges, Katharine Folger, chief of the DA’s Child Protection Unit, said in a Dec. 12 email to Hudon, a copy of which was obtained by The Sun.

It’s the second six-month suspension Pender has received while on the force, Pender was one of seven Lowell police officers who were accused of sexually harassing a female colleague during an off-duty bus trip to a political rally in Boston in October 1998. Then-City Manager Brian Martin suspended Pender for a year without pay. Pender appealed to the state Civil Service Commission and was successful in reducing his punishment to six months without pay.

Pender was arrested by Lowell police on New Year’s Day in 2013 at his Lowell residence on domestic assault and battery charges. He was immediately placed on paid administrative leave by Kenneth Lavallee, then police superintendent. Pender ‘s wife declined to press charges. City officials disciplined Pender with 10 punishment days, working for no pay.

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