FAIRFIELD, Calif. (KRON) — A girl who was thrown to the bottom by an officer after police had been known as for assist has filed a lawsuit towards the Metropolis of Fairfield and over 50 officers on the Fairfield Police Division pressure.
In response to courtroom paperwork filed in US District Court docket’s Japanese District, Diana Santos and her husband, Edward Chavez, are suing for accidents in addition to civil rights violations for an incident that passed off Oct. 20, 2020.
Santos and Chavez had been at their residence with their 4 daughters. One of many daughters’ ex-boyfriends got here to the residence and threatened Chavez with a knife, in line with courtroom paperwork. Sooner or later the FPD was known as, and officers arrived on scene. However when the officers arrived, the scenario took a flip.
Officers proceeded to arrest one in every of Santos’ daughters, and place her in a patrol automobile. When Santos’ three different daughters got here exterior to see what the commotion was about, they had been advised to return inside by Chavez and the officers, in line with the swimsuit. As Santos tried to calm her second daughter down, an officer threatened to place her “into handcuffs, too.”
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As officers Smith and Wiest proceeded to threaten the second daughter with arrest, they put one handcuff on her wrist. In response to courtroom paperwork, the officers didn’t inform both of the ladies that the daughter had been detained. As officers instructed Santos to maneuver, Wiest allegedly grabbed Santos’s shirt so violently that it ripped earlier than pulling each arms behind her again.
Cellphone video of the incident got here to mild earlier than video from the bodycams worn by police throughout the altercation was launched final yr. The footage reveals Santos’ legs flying up within the air as Wiest picked her up and threw her on the bottom. Then Santos could be seen unconscious on the pavement.
In response to the criticism, Santos “suffered extreme bodily and emotional accidents, together with accidents to her again.” The criticism alleges that the quantity of pressure Wiest and Does 1-50 used towards Santos within the interplay was “so extreme that no reasoanable officer would have used such pressure underneath the circumstances.”
The swimsuit argues that Wiest took a full minute after slamming Santos the bottom earlier than he requested an ambulance. Court docket paperwork state that FPD officers proceeded to go looking the house of Santos and Chavez and not using a warrant. The criticism lists 5 causes of motion: extreme pressure, malicious prosecution, unconstitutional seizure and detention and two causes of unconstitutional search.
