VALLEJO — The city has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a suit with a man who was wrestled into the pavement and placed into a now-banned carotid hold by several officers investigating a report of a man shooting a slingshot at kids, according attorneys representing him.
The plaintiff, Carl Edwards was on his property fixing a fence when the first officer approached him. He suffered head trauma, a broken nose, a black eye, cuts to his face, arms, back, hands, head, and he required stitches over his right brow, according to court records.
Video of the incident shows officers wrestling with and pinning Edwards against the concrete, blooding his entire face as he screams. At one point in the July 2017 incident, an officer placed his knee on Edwards’ neck.
“This is one of the most brutal, unprovoked police beatdowns I’ve seen in almost thirty years of practice. Vallejo needs to rein in its violent police officers,” Edwards’ attorney, Michael Haddad, said in a news release.
Hours after Haddad’s office announce the settlement, the city of Vallejo issued a statement apologizing to Edwards for his “negative experience” with the Vallejo police department. The statement notes that the city did not require Vallejo police to admit wrongdoing, but then goes on to stop just short of doing that very thing.
“The Vallejo Police Department will not tolerate any acts of excessive force on our residents. … As a police department and a city, we are continually learning from our past mistakes and successes as we move forward,” city spokeswoman Brittany Jackson said, later adding, “We are working hard to establish policies and a culture to avoid negative experiences between our citizens and officers, particularly those that may result in injury, and to honor the sanctity of life for all in our community.”
Jackson’s statement says the city is working to bring “awareness” about de-escalation tactics in the police force.
The suit named as defendants Ofc. Mark Thompson, Ofc. Bret Wagoner, Lt. Steve Darden, and then-Vallejo-Ofc. Spencer Muniz-Bottomley, who now works for the Sonoma County Sheriff.
In video of the incident, Muniz-Bottomley is seen, through his shadow on the ground, gesturing for Edwards to come forward. The officer continues to walk toward Edwards, who is standing near the fence, the footage shows. Although not seen fully, Edwards appears to be working on the upper portion of the fence.
“Put your hands on your head, bro,” the officer is heard saying. He follows up with “What the (expletive)…” before he suddenly grabs Edwards, who utters expletives.
Muniz-Bottomley then wrestles Edwards to the ground while others hold his head down and attempt to cuff Edwards as he attempts to hold his arm steady. At one point, Muniz-Bottomley puts Edwards in a carotid hold, a controversial technique because of its potential to close a person’s arteries, putting them at risk for death. The carotid was widely banned in the wake of the George Floyd killing as police departments reacted to nationwide protests and the start of the “Defund the Police” movement.
This is only the latest six-to-seven-figure payout Vallejo has issued to settle a civil rights lawsuit including the city’s police force, and more could be on the way. Two major suits — over the 2019 fatal shooting of Willie McCoy by six officers, and the killing of Sean Monterrosa last June — remain in early stages of litigation. In September, the city agreed to pay $5.7 million to the family of Ronell Foster by then-Ofc. Ryan McMahon in 2018.
McMahon was later fired after an internal review found he put his partner in danger when he fired a shot in the McCoy killing.
As if all that wasn’t enough, several investigations into alleged serious misconduct remain active, most notably a probe that has turned up evidence corroborating a report by the nonprofit news site Open Vallejo that several officers involved in fatal shootings would bend their badge to celebrate the killings, City Manager Greg Nyhoff said at a public event earlier this year. The president of the Vallejo police union has also been put on leave pending an internal probe into the destruction of the windshield Det. Jarrett Tonn fired through when he killed Monterrosa.
An investigation into the online circulation of a pre-World War II era Vallejo police badge with a backwards swastika on it is ongoing.
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Author: Nate Gartrell