ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A federal lawsuit has been filed against the St. Petersburg Police Department, alleging officers used brutality in their treatment of a homeless man who was injured while being transported to jail.
The complaint was filed at the U.S. District Courthouse in Tampa Monday morning.
The lawsuit alleges that two officers violated Heriberto Sanchez-Mayen's civil rights when they arrested him without cause and took him to jail for a non-criminal infraction that would normally result in a citation.
“You’re gonna take a ride today”
The federal complaint stems from a June 8, 2023, incident in which Officer Sarah Gaddis spotted Sanchez-Mayen sleeping on a piece of cardboard in a vacant lot.
Her body camera footage shows she approached and awakened him.
“What are you doing?” Gaddis asked
“Oh. I fell asleep,” Sanchez-Mayen replied.
Gaddis then points to a sign that says “no trespassing” at one entrance to the lot.
“Oh no, I didn’t see it,” Sanchez-Mayen said.
Records show Sanchez-Mayen, who was homeless and had a history of alcoholism, received more than two dozen previous citations.
These were for things like having an open container, sleeping in a public place, and public urination.
“You going to write me a ticket?” Sanchez-Mayen asked the officer.
"No, you’re gonna take a ride today,” Officer Gaddis said. “I've decided that you’re gonna actually go to jail today.”
“Rather than being given a ticket to appear, which is the custom and the practice and what should have been done, he was illegally arrested for the sole purpose of teaching him a lesson,” said attorney Thomas Scholaro, who is representing Sanchez-Mayen in the lawsuit.
He says the body camera footage showed officers were upset at his client.
“You get tickets all the time. You don’t care. You don’t change your ways,” Gadis said.
“I think after a certain many, it should be a felony after a certain many,” said St. Petersburg Police Officer Michael Thacker.
He arrived in a transport van to pick up Sanchez-Mayen and transport him to the Pinellas County Jail.
“A certain amount of any crime, it should be a felony,” Thacker said. “A year in jail might solve the problem.”
“They belly-chained this man so he couldn’t protect himself or move his hands and arms, and they took him for a ride,” Scholaro said.
A broken neck
During the ride, Sanchez-Mayen falls out of the seat.
Sanchez-Mayen's attorneys allege what happened was not an accident.
“During that ride, the officer deliberately stopped short, throwing Mr. Sanchez-Mayen into the bulkhead where he fractured and broke his neck,” Scholaro said.
Sanchez-Mayen's attorneys say the van driver didn’t stop or help before he arrived at the jail.
“He’s unconscious,” Thacker said when he opened the van door and found Sanchez-Mayen on the floor.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” Thacker repeatedly called.
“They literally pulled him out by his ankles. Where his head could be seen bopping on the floor and bopping on the door. And bopping on the bumper. And ultimately bopping on the pavement,” Scholaro said.
Sanchez-Mayen is now paralyzed. After his injury, both legs had to be amputated. He receives round-the-clock care at a nursing home.
“That is his sentence now for simply sleeping in a public lot. They sure taught him a lesson,” Scholaro said.
We reached out to the St. Petersburg Police Department, and a spokesperson released a statement saying, “The St. Petersburg Police Department denies the claims and trusts in the judicial process.”
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