Conclusion of Arrest

The course I decided to take was to file abuse charges against the arresting officer and the officers that beat the prisoner in jail at Santa Rita. The outcome was predictable, after an investigation by members of the Sheriff’s Department no provable violations were found. Although an interesting aspect of the investigation did come about, I was shown pictures of possible victims of the jail beating and I discovered I had been so traumatized at the time I had a memory that was wrong. It wasn’t until I was shown a picture did I realize that the person I saw beaten was a black man in dreadlocks rather the remembered Hispanic man of my memories. And this took a day or two to surface with much confusion as is seem I put the face of the person taken away by the deputies onto the person beaten. Because of this and nothing being done about the abuse I decided to go an additional step.

I filed a small claims court action against the arresting officer for abuse of civil rights and physical abuse over not letting me use the restroom. I also filed small claims action against two of the jail deputies for my trauma. I served a subpoena on the Sheriff’s Department asking for records of complaints against these officers and records showing medical actions taken at the jail that night.

Both cases were tried the same day with the same judge. The first case of the arresting officer was dismissed as not having enough evidence. In the second case there was an attorney there for Alameda County to explain their position on not giving any information from the personnel files of the officers. There was a "Keeper of the Records" there from the Sheriff’s Department to testify no complaints were filed for that night by anyone nor any medical actions taken. The officers both under oath testified they didn’t beat or harm any prisoners. So this case was also dismissed. It was clear the judge didn’t believe the officers but as he told me without my witness (who had left town and I was unable to locate) he had no choice.

The following year I was contacted by an attorney in the public defenders office of Alameda County wanting information about what took place at the jail because she had a client that was beaten and abused by one of the same deputies that I took to court. She never got back to me with the outcome of her case.

Again the thing that needs to be done is getting a camera in that area of the jail with a feed to someone other that the Sheriff’s Department.