Lawsuit seeks millions in Stanislaus deputy’s shooting death of 16-year-old driver
Lawyers representing the parents of a 16-year-old Riverbank boy who was fatally shot by a deputy after fleeing from a traffic stop in May have filed a lawsuit against Stanislaus County, the Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Jeff Dirkse and are seeking more than $30 million in damages.
The Law Office of Mark E. Merin filed the civil rights lawsuit Monday in federal court in Fresno on behalf of the estate of Xander Mann — the 16-year-old who was fatally shot — and his parents, Amy Pickering and Justin Mann. The lawsuit alleges wrongful death, excessive force, negligence and assault and battery.
The lawsuit restates the allegations the Merin law firm made in a June 4 claim against the county and Sheriff’s Department. The firm filed the lawsuit after the county rejected the claim July 15, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also accuses Dirkse of immediately defending Gerardo Zazueta, the deputy who shot Mann, and trying “to influence the public’s perception of the shooting in favor of law enforcement by releasing incomplete and misleading circumstances of the shooting, and downplaying or ignoring the several violations of policy committed by (Zazueta) during the course of the incident.”
The lawsuit alleges Zazueta’s violations include not turning his body camera on, shooting at a moving vehicle as well as failing to follow the Sheriff’s Department’s vehicle pursuit policy. The lawsuit claims this incident is part of a pattern of a dozen incidents of excessive force by deputies in recent years.
Dirkse has said the Mann drove his car directly at Zazueta and the deputy “had no time nor place to retreat” when he fired his weapon.
Sgt. Tom Letras, a department spokesman, issued this statement regarding the lawsuit: “As with any officer-involved shooting, several investigations are conducted. In the case of the officer-involved shooting involving Xander Mann, not all investigations have been concluded.
“The Sheriff’s Office generally does not make a public statement regarding civil lawsuits, especially when the investigation is ongoing.”
Letras said Zazueta has returned to full duty. Zazueta was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, which is the protocol. He has been a Stanislaus deputy since May 2017, according to previous information from the Sheriff’s Department.
No other lawsuits against deputy
This is the first lawsuit filed against Zazueta in Stanislaus County Superior Court and in U.S. District Court in Fresno, according to the courts’ websites.
The incident with Mann started around 2 a.m. on May 18 when deputies stopped a four-door compact car near Torrid Avenue and North Carpenter Road in Modesto over a minor traffic offense, according to the lawsuit. Mann was driving and had four teenagers in the car with him.
The lawsuit states deputy Jesse Tovar walked up to the driver side of Mann’s car and noticed there were five teens inside. Tover asked Mann to roll down his window. Mann rolled it half way down. Tovar than asked to Mann to turn the engine off, but Mann drove off.
Mann led deputies and Modesto police officers on a 20-minute, 15-mile chase that ended at McClure and Finch Roads, in an industrial area near the Modesto Airport. The sheriff has said the pursuit reached 60 mph.
Merin, the attorney representing Mann’s family, has said Mann had recently gotten out of juvenile hall and made a poor decision in fleeing. He also has said that deputies should never have chased a car full of teenagers over a traffic violation and used a dangerous maneuver to stop the fleeing car.
Lawsuit: Driver tried to surrender
Authorities used what is called a PIT maneuver to stop the car. In these maneuvers, an officer uses his vehicle to push a car, forcing it sideways to a stop. Authorities had tried using the maneuver earlier to end the pursuit.
The lawsuit states Mann’s car spun out after the second PIT maneuver and drove in reverse before stopping at a curb. The lawsuit states Mann and his passengers then agreed it was time for him to surrender.
The lawsuit claims Mann slowly moved forward between the gap created by the patrol vehicles. The lawsuit says deputies had positioned their vehicles to box Mann in and force him away from their vehicles. The lawsuit claims Zazueta had stopped his vehicle facing Mann’s car.
“Zazueta quickly exited his patrol vehicle on the driver-side, drew his pistol, and pointed it at the vehicle driven by Mann as it slowly moved passed Zazueta and his patrol vehicle,” the lawsuit alleges. “Zazueta was never in the path of the vehicle ... and was never in danger of being struck by the vehicle.
“Mann never drove his vehicle in a manner that posed a threat to Zazueta or to anyone else, when Mann slowly moved the vehicle forward while attempting to remove the key from the vehicle’s ignition. Zazueta approached the driver-side of the vehicle ... and fired his pistol at least three times through the vehicle’s driver-side window.”
Teen passengers wounded
Zazueta shot Mann in the left side of his head, leaving him brain-dead (he would be taken off life support days later), according to the lawsuit. “Mann’s body fell limp in the driver seat ..., and his foot depressed the vehicle’s accelerator. The vehicle rapidly accelerated forward several yards, arcing to the left, before crashing head-on into a utility pole.”
The lawsuit states Zazueta grazed one teen passenger in the neck and the another in the head. Both needed medical attention.
But in a video report on the incident released in late May, Sheriff Dirkse said Zazueta did not turn on his body camera because of the “rapid nature of how this critical incident unfolded” and that Mann drove directly at Zazueta and the deputy “had no time nor place to retreat” when he fired his weapon.
While the video report includes deputies’ body camera footage depicting parts of the pursuit and the aftermath of the shooting, there is no footage of the shooting. Dirkse also said that during the pursuit Mann drove directly toward one of the deputies, and the deputy had to “conduct a rapid evasive maneuver and was narrowly missed.”
But the lawsuit challenges Dirkse’s account of the pursuit and shooting and states Dirkse did not provide information or footage to support his account. The lawsuit also says Dirkse did not mention the two passengers who had been wounded.
10 Ten other lawsuits
And during the four-minute mark of the sheriff’s video report, one of the deputies can be heard during the pursuit saying, “There’s kids in there.”
The lawsuit lists 11 other examples of what it calls excessive force by deputies resulting in injury or death from February 2017 to September 2020, which resulted in 10 lawsuits. Six of the lawsuits have been settled and four are pending.
The settled lawsuits include the $7 million Stanislaus County agreed to pay in 2019 to the husband and young son of Evin Olsen Yadegar, a Modesto woman who was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in Ripon while she was in her car.
Deputies had attempted to contact Yadegar at a Salida hotel. Yadegar — who had bipolar I disorder, which is described as episodes of extreme moods, particularly mania — had led deputies on a low-speed pursuit to Ripon.
Justin Wall, the deputy who shot Yadegar, is charged with voluntary manslaughter and awaiting trial in San Joaquin County. Wall remains employed by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department but is performing non-peace officer duties.
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
