Federal lawsuit accuses San Diego Police Department of racial profiling in traffic stop that turned violent
No charges were ever filed against any of the five people arrested in the August 2022 encounter, which took place after they attended a friend's burial
Continuing on my recent string of writing about recent lawsuits filed against police departments in San Diego County:
Three teens, a 21-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant and a 21-year-old man were in a car, driving away from Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego after the burial of a friend in August 2022.
Moments later, they were pulled over and surrounded by about 10 to 12 San Diego Police Department officers. The officers allegedly placed everyone under arrest after forcibly removing them from the car, pinning one of the men face first onto the street. Another said he was choked with a seatbelt as police restrained him.
A search of the car turned up a gun in the trunk.
No charges were filed against any of them for that particular incident, based on a search of county court records.
Now all five of them are suing the city of San Diego for false arrest, excessive force, false imprisonment and other causes of action, according to a federal complaint they filed on July 5.
Police told them they were pulled over for running a stop sign, the complaint alleges, even though they did not pass a stop sign.
“Although the police attempted to charge PLAINTIFFS with a number of bogus charges, none of them came to fruition,” the complaint reads. “None of the PLAINTIFFS were convicted of anything as a result of the incident. However, PLAINTIFFS were forced to spend time in jail before the charges were dropped.”
A few other notable excerpts from the complaint:
One of the plaintiffs took out his phone and tried to film:
MR. BRANDON sat in the front passenger seat recording the encounter. Other SDPD officers noticed that MR. BRANDON was recording on his phone; they smacked the phone out of his hand and it fell to the ground, cracking the screen. MR. BRANDON attempted to retrieve his phone, but officers used the seatbelt to restrain him, choking him in the process. MR. BRANDON struggled so he could breath while the others who remained in the vehicle were terrified that they would be next.
The plaintiffs were in jail for up to two weeks following the arrests. The one who was pregnant at the time was locked up for one day.
She was so worried that some harm would come to her baby as a result of this encounter, and was in tears. SDPD officers took MS. RODRIGUEZ to the side as other officers began searching her car without permission, reasonable suspicion, or probable cause. Following the search, a gun was found in the trunk compartment. MS. RODRIGUEZ was then handcuffed and thrown into the back of another police car.
Plaintiffs now have “deepened fear of the police, stress, anxiety, anger, oppression, insomnia, and hyper vigilance.”
As a result of this inexplicable and illegal conduct at the hands of SDPD officers, PLAINTIFFS suffered physical, economic, and emotional harm. Each of the PLAINTIFFS suffered some level of physical harm, from bruising and lacerations from the the handcuffs and general handling of the officers, to more serious injuries like MR. JOHNSON who suffered a serious head injury. MS. RODRIGUEZ's Nissan was damaged from officers forcing the doors open against the curb, and MR. BRANDON's phone was also damaged from the encounter.
In addition to the city of San Diego, the complaint also lists then-Police Chief Dave Nisleit as a defendant. It was originally filed in San Diego County Superior Court in May, but got transferred to U.S. District Court because it involves the Fourth Amendment and other federal law.
I filed a California Public Records Act request for the bodycam footage. We’ll see.