Teen driver’s death follows pattern of excessive force by Stanislaus deputies, lawsuit claims
The law firm suing Stanislaus County and its Sheriff’s Department in the May fatal shooting of a 16-year-old driver claims the incident is part of a pattern of excessive force by deputies and cited 11 other incidents since February 2017 as evidence.
The other incidents resulted in five additional deaths and 10 lawsuits. Five of the lawsuits have been settled with no admission of wrongdoing by the county. The 11th incident involved a November 2017 incident of a deputy repeatedly striking a homeless man authorities were trying to detain. A lawsuit was not filed.
Sheriff Jeff Dirkse disputed the allegation that his deputies have engaged in a pattern of excessive force, saying in an email that the claim “is simply not true.”
One of the settled cases is well-known.
The county agreed to pay $7 million in November 2019 to settle the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Evin Olsen Yadegar, who was suffering a mental health crisis when she lead deputies on a pursuit in February 2017. She was fatally shot while in her car by a deputy. Justin Wall, the deputy who shot Yadegar, was charged with manslaughter and is awaiting trial in San Joaquin County, where the shooting occurred.
But the four other settlements have not been previously reported.
The county stated it paid $802,500 in these settlements. The county also reported it paid $740,242 in legal costs in these and the Yadegar settlements. (The county’s legal costs in the Yadegar settlement were not available when The Bee initially reported the lawsuit had been resolved.)
The county pays the first $250,000 of its costs for each claim or lawsuit, which includes the settlement and the county’s legal fees, and then insurance covers the amount above that, according to county CEO Jody Hayes.
The other lawsuits are pending and include the May 2018 death of Alejandro Sanchez and the September 2020 death of Eloy Gonzalez.
The Sacramento-based law office of Mark E. Merin sued the county in July in the May death of 16-year-old Riverbank resident Xander Mann.
Mann had four other teens in his car when he fled from deputies around 2 a.m. during a traffic stop in Modesto. The pursuit ended near the Modesto Airport after a deputy fired into Mann’s car, fatally wounding him and wounding two of his passengers, according to the lawsuit. The law firm represents Mann’s parents.
The other settlements not previously reported:
▪ The county paying $500,000 to settle the lawsuit brought against it by attorneys representing Alex Barbour. He was shot by a deputy in November 2017 at his south Modesto home. The county’s legal costs in defending itself were $22,560. The lawsuit was dismissed in January.
The lawsuit alleges deputies were dispatched to a report of a disturbance at the home. Barbour was about to leave in his car when deputies arrived. The lawsuit states he was not armed and posed no threat when he turned his car off and got out. The lawsuit alleges Barbour was shot without warning.
In their review of the shooting, Stanislaus County prosecutors cite Deputy Christopher Hendee saying the car was moving down the driveway at a high rate of speed with its lights off when he yelled for the driver to stop. The review states Barbour stopped but did not raise his hands despite Hendee’s repeated commands.
The deputy said Barbour “aggressively” opened his car door, turned toward him and tried to get out of the car while holding in his hand what Hendee thought was a gun (it was a cell phone). Hendee fired once. Prosecutors said Barbour had been drinking and his recollection of the events was not clear. The review states Barbour did not resist arrest but the shooting was justifiable.
▪ The county paid $237,500 regarding excessive force allegations against deputies responding to a call involving a then 17-year-old Patterson boy who was on the hallucinogenic drug LSD. The teen, Jedidiah Morelos, was pepper-sprayed, shot six times with a beanbag shotgun and hit multiple times with batons when deputies responded to his home in 2018 to assist firefighters with a medical call, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said Morelos was suffering a mental health crisis and needed help when a family member called 911. The deputies wrote in their reports Morelos was extremely agitated and aggressively charged them with a wooden pencil in his hand. The county spent $282,258 defending itself in the lawsuit. The lawsuit was dismissed in April 2020.
▪ The county paid $50,000 to settle a lawsuit in which attorneys for Ricardo Vasquez allege that as Vasquez was driving his 7-year-old son to football practice in September 2018 he was wrongly pulled over by deputies at gunpoint.
“Within seconds, deputies slammed (Vasquez’s) head into the concrete causing head trauma and injuries, while his seven-year-old watched and sobbed in the car,” the lawsuit alleges. “Deputies cited (Vasquez) for resisting arrest and failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, but the District Attorney declined to press charges. Only after (Vasquez) was released and cited for resisting arrest, deputies attempted to apologize and explained it was a misunderstanding.”
The county spent $40,453 in legal fees defending itself in the lawsuit. The lawsuit was dismissed in May.
▪ The county agreed to pay $15,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by lawyers representing the family of Armando Osuna, 51, who was killed in May 2018 in Riverbank. Osuna had gone to a home he had been evicted from to pick up his furniture. He got into a dispute with the landlord and later hit a deputy with a metal pipe, according to authorities. A deputy fatally shot Osuna, a shooting prosecutors determined with justifiable. The county paid $62,362 in legal costs defending itself in the lawsuit.
▪ The county settled a lawsuit without payment filed against it by attorneys representing Andrew Haro. A deputy shot and wounded Haro in December 2018 in his grandmother’s Salida home. The lawsuit alleges the then 31-year-old Haro was suffering from bipolar disorder, had locked himself in a room with a knife, and was threatening to kill himself. His grandmother called 911 to get help for her grandson.
In a letter that said the shooting was justified, prosecutors wrote Haro had thrown the knife at two deputies. Haro, who was on parole at the time, pleaded guilty in January 2020 to assault with a deadly weapon on peace officers and was sentenced to four years in prison. While the county reported it settled the lawsuit without payment to Haro, it did spend $39,220 in legal costs defending itself.
Sheriff Dirkse said Haro’s lawsuit is an example of a “weak or meritless case ... (which) seldom garner headlines when their allegations are later proven to be untrue.”
Dirkse said deputies have thousands of encounters with the public each year and only about 1 in every 400 encounters results in use of force, with the vast majority of the encounters being very minor.
“Over the past several years, my department has placed a strong emphasis on increasing training in the use of force and de-escalation,” the sheriff said in an email. “We will continue to do so. We are always striving to improve safety for the community and our officers. Yet lawsuits come with the job.”
Dirkse said excessive force is not tolerated and each incident is investigated thoroughly. “Disciplinary action, up to termination, is taken if warranted,” he said.
He referred to the Stanislaus County Counsel’s office on whether any deputies were disciplined in any of the incidents in this story. The office did not provide any information by deadline, despite first asking for it on Aug. 4.
However, The Bee, as part of a previous Public Records Request, obtained investigative documents in the shootings of Barbour and Osuna. Deputies in both shootings were exonerated in Internal Affairs investigations.
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
