A Portland police officer is recovering from injuries following a tussle with a suspect outside the Preble Street Resource Center soup kitchen on Oxford Street.

Officer Robert Pelletier was working a paid detail at the soup kitchen at 7 p.m. Thursday when staff there asked him to remove Ricardo Bennett, 50, who had been banned from the facility, police said.

After a brief, verbal confrontation, Bennett attacked Pelletier, cutting his lip and breaking one of his ribs, police said.

Other officers arrived to help and Bennett was arrested and charged with assault on an officer, failure to submit to arrest and criminal trespass. He is being held at Cumberland County Jail.

Pelletier was treated at Mercy Hospital and will be on leave while he recuperates, police said.

Ricrado Bennett