UA police are investigating allegations that a police officer threw an associate professor of French to the ground, bruising her and breaking her eyeglasses, while trying to arrest her late last month.

Associate professor Irene d'Almeida said her clothing was also torn, and that she was cursed at by an officer who came to arrest her in the Oct. 30 incident.

Police visited d'Almeida in her office days after the victim of a hit-and-run accident identified what police believed to be d'Almeida's car as the one that struck him with a side mirror as he was crossing the street.

The officer's superior was called after the attempted arrest and d'Almeida was released.

Police are internally investigating accusations of police brutality made in a letter sent from one of d'Almeida's colleagues at Stanford University to President Pete Likins, as well as University of Arizona Police Department Chief Tony Daykin and the Daily Wildcat.

"As a result of the officer's follow-up (to the hit-and-run accident) we have some concerns," UAPD Cmdr. Brian Seastone said.

Police are hoping to complete the investigation in the next two weeks, Seastone said.

D'Almeida had not responded to officers' repeated attempts to contact her regarding the hit-and-run, which occurred Oct. 22, police reports state.

UAPD has not released any reports regarding the attempted arrest, nor the name of the officer who attempted to arrest d'Almeida, saying the matter is still under investigation.

UAPD Sgt. Rolf Averill, a detective on the case, said he could not comment further on the incident regarding the attempted arrest in the Modern Languages building, as the case is still under investigation.

The only report that has been released is the hit-and-run record citing d'Almeida's license plate.

The letter describing d'Almeida's attempted arrest was written by professor Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi of Stanford. Mudimbe-Boyi is the president of the African Literature Association, a non-profit society of scholars dedicated to the advancement of African Literary Studies. D'Almeida is an ALA member and former president. In the letter, Mudimbe-Boyi described d'Almeida's near-arrest as a "horrendous brutality" and calls for officials at the highest levels of the university to take action.

D'Almeida said she asked Mudimbe-Boyi to write the letter instead of taking action herself because she was under a great deal of shock.

According to the letter, the police officer who came to d'Almeida's office the day the incident occurred was there to follow up on a hit-and-run accident that happened Oct. 22.

A police report of the hit-and-run accident stated that a student who was walking in a crosswalk on North Cherry Avenue was struck in the buttocks by the right mirror of a black Nissan 4-door sedan.

The victim described the driver of the sedan as a black female, in her forties ÷ a description that d'Almeida appears to match. The driver was also wearing a suit, the student said. He gave police the license plate number, which police later matched with d'Almeida's car. D'Almeida said the license plate was not on her car.

The officer then called d'Almeida and had a conversation that he described in the police report as very abrupt. The officer wrote that d'Almeida said she needed to get back to class and would call when she had finished teaching.

The officer attempted to make contact with d'Almeida several times between Oct. 18 and Oct. 27, but was unsuccessful, the report stated.

Aside from confirming the information in the letter, d'Almeida has declined to answer specific questions about either the hit-and-run accident or the event on Oct. 30.

"I maintain that I have been terribly wronged in this whole ordeal," she said.

Her lawyer did not return a phone call yesterday.

Dean of Humanities Charles Tatum said he arrived at the Modern Languages building minutes after police visited d'Almeida in her office. He described d'Almeida as being emotionally distraught.

Tatum said he wrote a "strongly worded" letter to Daykin 12 days ago, but has since deleted the letter from his computer. He said he has not received a response from the department.

"Professor d'Almeida has my complete support," Tatum said. "Treatment like this was common in the 60's, 50's, 40's, and 30's, but not today."