Teen left in ‘excruciating pain’ by officer during traffic stop, California suit says

A teenager was left in “excruciating pain” after her family says a police officer used “excessive force” during a traffic stop in California, according to a lawsuit.

The 17-year-old was driving with friends on March 8 when officers with the Chico Police Department pulled her over, says the lawsuit, which was filed on June 5.

The officer told the teen, who is only identified by her initials in the lawsuit, that he pulled her over for not using her blinker and for “yelling racial slurs out of her car,” the lawsuit says.

The teen told the officer she would never use racial slurs, according to the lawsuit. Police had been looking for a woman in a dark blue Ford who was accused of shouting racial slurs out of her car, but the teen was driving a gray Toyota Tacoma, the lawsuit says.

The teen called her mother, who came to the scene and parked about 5 feet away, the lawsuit says. When the teen tried to go over to talk to her mom, an officer shouted that she wasn’t allowed to leave and grabbed her arms “with a lot of force,” the lawsuit says.

He then “twisted her arms behind her back,” causing “excruciating pain,” the lawsuit says. The teen was recovering from a broken hand and was still healing after surgery and told the officer he was hurting her, the lawsuit said.

The officer then kicked her leg out from under her and “pushed her to the floor with significant force,” the lawsuit says.

The Chico Police Department told McClatchy News it could not comment on pending litigation.

The teen told officers that the handcuffs were hurting her injured arm and hand, but officers said “they didn’t care,” refused to loosen her handcuffs and told her she’d be checked later at a hospital, the lawsuit says.

The teen said in a statement provided to McClatchy News by her mother that she is scared every time she sees a police car drive by.

“I never know if they will ‘like me or not’ and what they will do to me even when I am doing no wrong,” the teen said. “I hope to get the officers that did this off the streets so cops are held accountable for their actions and not hide behind a badge.”

In the statement, she said that the plates in her arm are still aching and that her arm now makes a popping sound.

“The experience for me was extremely scary to see that these people have this much power and will still try to hide everything even when they are wrong,” she said.

Her mother said in a statement that it was “traumatizing” to watch her daughter be treated this way by police.

“Her father is a cop with the same department, and I didn’t expect this kind of behavior from his colleagues,” she said. “I felt helpless. To watch my daughter suffer this unprovoked brutality, begging for help, and just be told to just sit and watch, was absolutely horrifying.”

The family’s lawyer, Stanley Goff, told McClatchy News that the teen was charged after the incident but declined to name the charge. He said they are fighting the charge in juvenile court and anticipate that it will be dismissed.

The lawsuit accuses officers of using excessive force and seeks damages of an unspecified amount.

The teen’s mother said in a statement that she hopes the lawsuit will help bring more accountability to the police force and allow people to rebuild their confidence in law enforcement.

“It breaks my heart when the people we rely on to protect us are the ones harming us,” she wrote. “This has got to change.”